tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947Sun, 15 Feb 2015 16:01:57 +0000Ultramarathon trainingAmerica's most iconic running eventsBoston Marathon bombing; What the Media Missed in Boston; The Boston Marathon's Other heroes; the Boston Bombing's Untold StoryDark Clouds Over the OlympicsDon KardongFrank ShorterGPS and brain shrinkGalen RuppMo FarahOlympic JingoismOlympic Silver Liningperformance-enhancing technologiestechs that weaken usEndurance and SustainabilityRunning, endurance, and sustainable lifestyleshttp://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)Blogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-3761366995251940876Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:59:00 +00002014-12-30T10:59:49.550-08:00Endurance Matters, Not Just in Sport!As the title of this blog says, I'm very interested in the connections between our endurance as individual humans and the long-run sustainability of the civilization we live in.&nbsp; Those two things are rarely connected in our media or public policy.&nbsp; For example (and I apologize if this seems rude), if the people of a populous eastern state elect a very&nbsp;fat man to be their governor, it apparently&nbsp;did not occur to them that their chosen leader may have a very&nbsp;weak sense of what constitutes a healthy society, since he evidently doesn't pursue it in his own life.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In my younger years, I didn't pay much attention to those connections either.&nbsp; When I became an avid long-distance runner as a teenager, it wasn't because I had the slightest interest in whether America would survive the 21st century.&nbsp;In those days, although I found the writing of dystopian visionaries like George Orwell quite fascinating,&nbsp;those visions&nbsp;seemed more imaginary than real (the year 1984 was far in the future), and those of us who grew up in the heady 1950s didn't worry about the future.&nbsp; We basked in the promise of the American Dream.&nbsp; My big goal in those days was to run the Boston Marathon--which I did&nbsp;several times in the&nbsp;1960s.&nbsp; I finished 26th the first time, and it was one of the great thrills of my life.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As I grew older, though, I began to notice interesting connections between the capabilities I&nbsp;needed to practice a competitive runner, and those I needed in order to make a living, raise a family, and deal with the stresses of life in a fast-changing society.&nbsp; When I started <em>Running Times</em> magazine in the 1970s with fellow runners Phil Stewart, Rick Platt, and my younger brother Glenn (who later changed his name to Alex), I soon found that getting each issue of the magazine out took enormous physical and mental endurance.&nbsp; To meet our printer's deadline each month, we typically had to work 30 straight hours or more through the last two days and nights, sustained by bad coffee (long before Starbucks existed) and our experience in pushing past "the wall."&nbsp; We didn't have computers and digital tech to ease the workload (every typo had to be fixed by retyping the bad line on a word-processing machine, running the print-out through a waxing machine, and cutting out the corrected line with a razor blade by hand). Check out those 1977-79 issues, and you'll find an occasional crooked line, where the waxed correction got jiggled somewhere in transit to the printer, or perhaps where my overcaffeinated hand did the jiggling.)&nbsp; We also didn't have Shark Tank or crowd-funding to help pay the costs.&nbsp; It was "sweat equity," and the end of every month&nbsp;felt&nbsp;like running a 2:20 marathon against the wind, in sleet,&nbsp;on no sleep.&nbsp; And no, we weren't Kenyans.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It was years later, when I moved on from <em>Running Times</em> to edit the work of environmental scientists,&nbsp;that I first heard the term "sustainability" and learned that many of the world's leading scientists were finding evidence that modern civilization cannot continue current rates of population growth, pollution, climate disruption,&nbsp;and destruction of the planet's biodiversity (on which all human life depends totally), much longer.&nbsp; The <em>long-run</em> capacity of our civilization was beginning to fail.&nbsp; In 1992, more than a thousand of the world's top scientists issued a warning that "Humanity and the natural world are on a collision course." This wasn't a group of whackos-for-hire, like the handful of shameless PhDs who&nbsp;were&nbsp;being paid by oil and coal companies to claim that climate change isn't being caused by burning fossil fuels (or, as the Oklahoma Senator Inhofe claimed, that "global warming is a liberal hoax").&nbsp; The&nbsp;men and women&nbsp;who issued the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity included every living Nobel Prize winner in the sciences (more than 100 of them).&nbsp; And since then, their numbers have grown to tens of thousands.&nbsp; But the general media largely ignored that warning (the <em>New York Times</em>, which depends heavily on the advertising of the fossil-fueled consumer economy, commented later that&nbsp;the Scientists' Warning&nbsp;wasn't "newsworthy"!)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the quarter-century since that Warning, all of the trends those scientists warned about have worsened.&nbsp; There are now at least five major scenarios of how civilization may come to an end within the next century or sooner--like an unfit runner collapsing mid-race--and <em>none of those five is highly improbable.</em>&nbsp;You have to wonder&nbsp;what the&nbsp;<em>collective</em> probability is. &nbsp;I discuss these five scenarios in a forthcoming book, which I'll tell you more about in a later post.&nbsp; In the meantime, though, there's a sixth scenario, the probability of which scientists can't really can't quantify at all,&nbsp;because it's too overwhelmingly complex.&nbsp; But you may well be familiar with it: &nbsp;It's the growing extent to which the corruptions or&nbsp;failures of large institutions (governments, religious organizaations, and&nbsp;large corporations)&nbsp;are overwhelming us, distracting us from the things we really need to be paying attention to if we want our grandchildren--and theirs--to have life.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For just a few examples of such institutional faltering, recall the hacker attacks at Target,&nbsp;Home Depot, and a growing list of other companies, stealing data from nearly half of America's credit cards.&nbsp; Think of the mortgage-fraud crimes of companies like Bank of America and half of Wall Street;&nbsp; the sex-crime scandals of the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts; the air-bag failures and recalls of millions of cars; and on and on,&nbsp; In&nbsp; my last post, I described a life-sapping struggle I've had with the predatory company Quicken Loans.&nbsp; [Oh yes, in a followup to that, the Request for Correction I sent to the Court brought me a one-word reply: "Rejected."]&nbsp; Sometimes, now, it seems to me that if I hadn't been a competitive runner for the past half-century, and learned to endure a whole range of stresses--from injury and fatigue to&nbsp;dehydration, heat exhaustion,&nbsp;mental bonking, and staggering discouragement (like the time I went off course and got lost at around&nbsp;the 45-mile mark of&nbsp;a 50-miler in the Arizona desert)--if I hadn't trained well for those things I'd probably&nbsp;be in an insane asylum by now, or worse.&nbsp; &nbsp;I can't run as fast now as I once did, but I'm glad I have learned to endure.&nbsp; <br /><br /><strong>Next post</strong>:<em> How specific physiological effects of endurance training&nbsp;can prepare us for the non-sporting stresses of a failing civilization.</em><br /><br />http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/12/endurance-matters-not-just-in-sport.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-2202833368704193706Wed, 17 Dec 2014 00:06:00 +00002014-12-16T16:06:31.846-08:00The Real Nature of Endurance&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I've been caught up in something that has given me a whole new perspective on the nature of human endurance.&nbsp; Although I have run 50-mile and 100-mile races with some success,&nbsp;what I've encountered now&nbsp;is a thing that has tested my endurance as nothing before.&nbsp; The challenge here has not been a physical one (though there's been plenty of adrenaline and fatigue), but mainly a mental and psychological one.&nbsp; And suddenly, I realize that with this, I have far more company than I have ever had in long distance running.&nbsp; There are at most a few hundred thousand Americans who have&nbsp;completed events like the Ironman Triathlon, or Western States 100, or Tour de California.&nbsp; There may be tens of millions who've been&nbsp;beaten down&nbsp;by incompetent bureaucracies or corrupt corporations.&nbsp; And for many of the victims, there's no finish line.&nbsp; If you ever get pulled into a&nbsp;nightmare&nbsp;of the kind I'm about to describe, it&nbsp;can be life-saving&nbsp;to have spent years&nbsp;building your endurance&nbsp;on mountains or trails.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My current struggle is with Quicken Loans, a mortgage company I approached for a refinance of my home as innocently as a fish swimming into the mouth of an alligator.&nbsp;When the mouth closed, my wife and I discovered our entire net&nbsp;life savings had been wiped out--and our mortgage debt had been suddenly increased by $28,000 more than the refinance contract had specified.&nbsp; I should note, since it's critical, that my wife and I are in our 70s, living on a very small fixed income (we can't afford to go out to movies, or even have lunch at Chipotle), and what Quicken did to us has caused us over a year (so far) of stress that is wearing me down in a way I never experienced in 100-mile races or even in the 135-mile Badwater race across Death Valley (photo above).&nbsp; And my wife is now so traumatized that I'm afraid she may not survive this.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But please understand, I'm not writing this to solicit sympathy.&nbsp; I know other people are in far worse straits than we are--millions of others who've been snared by predatory organizations.&nbsp; And the disturbing thing is, these are not&nbsp;what we'd normally call "criminal" organizations, like organized crime syndicates, or drug cartels, or the shadow groups that steal IDs and empty out bank accounts.&nbsp; The outfit&nbsp;my wife and I are&nbsp;dealing with just happens to be Quicken Loans.&nbsp; We could&nbsp;quite as easily have been screwed by Bank of America, or Enron, or Duke Energy.&nbsp; Hundreds of American corporations have been convicted of crimes in recent years, and few have been prosecuted.&nbsp; As for corruption in government, don't even ask.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In Quicken's case, was the means&nbsp;by which it has taken our money a crime?&nbsp; My first thought was that it was a bait-and-switch.&nbsp; But I may never know, because I have no way of untangling the web of obfuscation and intimidation it has put up to block me.&nbsp; More recently, I've concluded that it may not have been actual bait-and-switch, but simply a case of such amazing negligence or incompetence that it would be a huge embarrassment to Quicken if it became widely known.&nbsp; Either way, it looks very much <em>like</em> a crime,, as I'll explain.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When my wife and I originally purchased our property, it consisted of six adjoining lots--one big enough for a house,&nbsp;but landlocked in a forest adjoining the Pacific Crest Trail (where I could go for fantastic runs),&nbsp;and five very small ones to&nbsp;provide road access to the house.&nbsp; In order to get a building permit, we were required by our county to have the lots legally joined as a single indivisible parcel.&nbsp; Once that was done, we got a construction loan from Wells Fargo Bank, and when the house was built the construction loan was converted to a mortgage.&nbsp; A few years later, with interest rates falling, we got a refinance from--yes--Quicken Loans. Later, the loan was acquired by Chase Bank.&nbsp; None of these giant banks had any problem with our mortgage.&nbsp; In the case of Quicken, which handled it smoothly, I later found myself reminded of the fundamental technique of a con-game: to first gain the mark's confidence.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, a few years later when I went for a second refinance, I had <em>confidence</em> in Quicken.&nbsp; They had already financed this same&nbsp;property once before.&nbsp;What could go wrong?&nbsp; And indeed, all seemed to go well.&nbsp; The contract looked flawless.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Eight months later, my wife and I received two letters from Quicken informing us that the refinanced mortgage was for only one of the six lots that form our property.&nbsp; There had been&nbsp;a mistake, they told us, and now they'd be increasing our tax escrow by an amount that would add about $28,000 to our debt over the term of the loan.&nbsp; When I objected, a man in their Legal department told me curtly, "You signed the Compliance Agreement!"&nbsp;&nbsp;We had indeed, and it wasn't until nearly a year later that we realized what a sleight-of-hand comment that had been.&nbsp; He'd said it with such self-righteous assurance that I assumed it looked bad for us.&nbsp; I knew it said something about the lender having a right to collect money that had inadvertently not been collected at closing.&nbsp; But I regarded that Agreement as a technicality, far outweighed by the fact that the mortgage they'd refinanced <em>wasn't even the one we'd brought to them.&nbsp; </em>How could a mortgage company that advertises its competence make such a stupid blunder on what should have been a very simple transaction?&nbsp; How could it have divided up a parcel that was by law indivisible?&nbsp; (The "mistake" appeared only in the Deed of Trust, on a page that was missing from the closing documents, so we&nbsp; never saw it.&nbsp; On all the other documents signed at closing, our property was simply identified by the correct street address, which has never changed and for which the 6-lot legal description had never changed.)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Having suddenly seen our life savings wiped out, we asked Quicken for a make-good.&nbsp; In a letter, we said we were aware that elderly people who dare to challenge the wrongdoing of large corporations often end up in protracted litigation that is never resolved in their lifetimes.&nbsp; We didn't want that kind of stress, and suggested that in exchange for having a quick resolution and peace of mind for our remaining years, we would accept a reimbursement of one-third of the amount they had added to our mortgage debt with their little "mistake."&nbsp; Boy, was I suckered.&nbsp; Not only did they refuse, but&nbsp;when I sued for the one-third in Small Claims court, they counter-sued <em>us</em>.&nbsp; By California court rules, they had to give us a five-day advance notice, but instead they waited until 4:30 p.m. the&nbsp;afternoon before our case was to be heard, and the next morning the judge said he'd have to send the combined cases to Civil Court, where we'd have to have a lawyer.&nbsp; Quicken had evidently deduced from our letter that our wish not to get entangled in litigation was our weakness, and that by immediately taking us <em>into</em> litigation, they could scare us into backing off.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Maybe this was where my lifetime of endurance training helped.&nbsp;Instead of backing off, I wrote a letter to the Civil Court judge who had been assigned to the escalated case, saying that the Quicken suit was a sham (my wife and I had already met its demands that we sign off on a corrected Deed of Trust), and the judge apparently agreed.&nbsp; He dismissed Quicken's case and sent our case against them back to Small Claims.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In preparing for the Small Claims trial, which by now had been kicked down the road eight more months, I suddenly discovered the sleight-of-hand that the Quicken lawyer had suckered me with, in his righteous "You signed the Compliance Agreement!"&nbsp; Now, looking at&nbsp;that agreement&nbsp;once again, I saw that while&nbsp;it does allow the lender to collect money that was due but inadvertently not collected at closing, it also states:<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lender agrees that any request for such money <strong>will not</strong>.<strong>change</strong> the previously agreed <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;upon points, closing costs, or escrow payments [except due to changes in insurance or<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; tax assessments] that you were approved for as set forth in the Loan Pricing Disclosure, <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Good Faith Estimate . . . and/or mortgage.<br /><br />But what Quicken was claiming in additional escrow (and not just "requesting" it but taking it from our bank account) changed the terms of all those documents hugely.&nbsp; In short, the Agreement was that if a mistake at closing resulted in their not getting money that if paid then would have resulted in the correct bottom line indicated by the Good Faith Estimate and Mortgage, it could be collect later.&nbsp; But not if it changed the bottom-line&nbsp;terms of the contract!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;At this point, I figured I had a slam-dunk.&nbsp; I say "slam dunk" with ironic awareness that the owner of Quicken Loans, a guy named Dan Gilbert, is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball franchise, employer of the NBA slam-dunk king LeBron James.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; At the Small Claims trial, the judge heard several cases before mine, and I noticed that he seemed repeatedly impatient and condescending to the litigants.&nbsp; When my turn came, he&nbsp;allowed me three minutes to make my case.&nbsp; When he heard that Quicken had made a mistake, he said scornfully, <em>"It's just a mistake!"</em>&nbsp; A moment later, when I got to the key argument about the Compliance Agreement, he glanced at the part that said a lender can collect for money inadvertently not collected at closing, and apparently without reading further, said loudly, "Rule for Defendant!"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I was devastated, but I'm not a guy who quits a 100-mile race at mile 90 (well, except once at the Vermont 100 when I foolishly ran with bronchitis).&nbsp; I filed a Request&nbsp;for Correction or Cancellation."&nbsp; I do not know why the judge suddenly ruled against me just as I was about to make the slam-dunk argument.&nbsp; I admit that I went home that afternoon wondering, Was he paid off?&nbsp; Or did he just have to pee so badly that he couldn't let the trial go on one more minute?&nbsp; Or was he one of those millions of boob-tube&nbsp;watchers who (evidently) think a company big enough to advertise on national TV can't possibly be that bad?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Court rules allowed Quicken to make its own response to my Request for Correction, and&nbsp;the response&nbsp;was a doozy: 400 words of obfuscation and assertion that "Mr. Ayres is just rehashing arguments already properly ruled on."&nbsp; And then, in the next-to-last paragraph of the second page, a quotation of the very text I'd been about to bring to the judge's attention--an audacious repeat of the same sleight-of-hand, this time addressed to the Court.&nbsp;(He signed the Compliance Agreement!&nbsp; He owes!)&nbsp; It was clearly a calculated bet (Dan Gilbert also owns a casino) that the Court would be duly persuaded by the con long before reading that paragraph and would react just as the impatient judge had.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As I said, one of the hardest things about "real-life" tests of endurance, as distinguished from athletic events, is that you may never get the relief of having crossed a finish line.&nbsp; This story has not yet ended, and I don't know whether it will be in my lifetime.&nbsp; But I can look back at what I've done in the past (top-ten finishes in the New York Marathon, JFK 50-mile, and Badwater 135, among others), and I can tell myself with confidence, I'm too far down this road to quit now.&nbsp; If Dan Gilbert can pay a guy $20.6 million to throw a ball through a hoop, he can damn well pay one 20th of 1-percent of that amount to make good on a wrong his company has done to an elderly couple.&nbsp; We may have a country where flash and glitz and big money rule for now, but in the long run it is perseverance that will prevail.<br />http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-real-nature-of-endurance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-8826207146326660697Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:23:00 +00002014-09-28T08:23:37.123-07:00 Why Endurance Matters: The Human Brain is Getting Smaller<em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </em>About three years ago, when I finished writing a book on the adventure of running America's largest ultramarathon, I titled the manuscript <em>Running Wild</em>.&nbsp; Before going to press, the publisher changed the title to <em>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance.</em>&nbsp; I thought it sounded awfully textbooky, but in the&nbsp;publishing biz&nbsp;the title is&nbsp;usually the publisher's call.&nbsp; Later, I wished I'd held out for <em>Running Wild</em>.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The thing is, for 99 percent of our evolution as bipedal hunter-gatherers, we humans <em>were</em> wild.&nbsp; For all those hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors had to have enormous endurance and savvy just to survive.&nbsp; A Paleolithic human was to a modern human what a wildcat is to a house cat, or a wolf to a dog, or an aurochs to a cow.&nbsp; Now, we've been thoroughly domesticated.&nbsp; We're cowed!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The domestication of humans began with the advent of civilization, and with our growing dependence on technology to do what we'd previously depended almost entirely on our bodies and brains to do.&nbsp; Today, we&nbsp;reflexively associate tech advancement with becoming smarter, and&nbsp;assume that while we may be physically weaker than our nomadic ancestors were, we're mentally far stronger.&nbsp; But anthropological research says that may not be&nbsp;true.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here's an excerpt from my forthcoming book, tentatively titled <em>Racing to the End of the World:</em><br /><em></em><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Between the beginning of civilization and today, it seems, the overall size of the human brain has apparently diminished by 15 to 20 percent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>In the last 500 years (the most recent 0.01 percent of our evolution), and especially in the past 50 years (the most recent 0.001 percent), equipped with our computers, Internet, and rockets, we have conquered the earth and are eyeing other planets—and meanwhile have lost a substantial part of the organ that enabled us to achieve that conquest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Now, the conquerors are being conquered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The size of the human brain peaked at about 1,500 cubic centimeters during the time of Early Modern Humans, or so-called Cro Magnon man, 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Now look what’s happened:<o:p></o:p></div><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p><br /> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cro Magnon Brain <o:p></o:p></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: 0.5in;">(after 99.6 percent of our evolution:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1,500 cc<o:p></o:p></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Modern Human Brain<o:p></o:p></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: 0.5in;">(after just the subsequent 0.4 percent:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1,300 cc<o:p></o:p></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The most convincing confirmation of this came in 2010, when anthropologist Antoine Balzeau of the <st1:placename w:st="on">French</st1:placename><st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype> of Natural History examined the skull of a 28,000-year-old Cro Magnon skeleton that had been found in a cave in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Dordogne</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Using advanced imaging technology, Balzeau made an endocast showing that the brain this skull once contained had been 15 to 20 percent larger than the modern human brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Other studies, cited by University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks, indicate that the shrinkage since Cro-Magnon man has been about 10 percent, or 150 cubic centimeters—an amount of brain about the size of a Macintosh apple—the original kind, with a lower-case “a”.<o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>When I was a kid first learning about evolution, I heard science-fiction-inspired jokes about humans eventually becoming giant heads with tiny vestigial appendages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But now, instead, the brain getting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">smaller</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Doesn’t that totally contradict what we know of human progress? And how could I not have heard of this? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>It’s not that the evidence of a significant shrink is much questioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I can only infer that for some reason this shrinking of our brains is a thing that the media most of us depend on for news or stimulation have very little incentive to cover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place>economy—and increasingly the world’s—is heavily invested in consumer technology sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>It is only lightly invested in serious education, environmental protection, human health, adaptation to the far-reaching ravages of global warming, preparation for the coming destruction of coastal cities, replacement of deteriorating roads, bridges, pipelines, water mains, and other costly infrastructure, and a long list of other urgent needs of the kind it will take hard use of our brains to meet.<o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp; </span>Consumer technology (including all the devices used to deliver passive entertainment, chatter, and distraction) generates the lion’s share of revenue that, through advertising and promotion, pays for and controls the major news media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Just watch how much of the advertising is for cars, fast food, and drugs, along with a fair amount of “hey, we’re <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good</i> guys” PR to appease those of us who have gotten too suspicious--like the BP ads in the wake of the Gulf oil rig disaster assuring us that BP is invested in America and is our friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As the Romans found, before their collapse, there are benefits to be gained by keeping the populace satisfied with “bread and circus.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Their formulation was later updated by Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake,” before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i> brain-severing demise, and more recently by the hugely profitable but debilitating American penchant for quelling anxiety with Twinkies, doughnuts, and fries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>There’s no political or commercial profit in pointing out that people may be getting dumber.<o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: .5in 56.15pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></div><br />http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/09/why-endurance-matters-human-brain-is.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-6318669070956795748Sat, 13 Sep 2014 23:30:00 +00002014-09-13T16:30:11.950-07:00Bodies Before Brains: How We Got So Smart <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Running with my 2-year-old grandson, Josh, has been a great revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>It has confirmed, for me, how we humans, out of all the millions of species on this planet, came to be the world-dominating animals we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And what it has confirmed is the very opposite of what most of us were taught in school—the idea that humans became what we are because of our big brains.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I’ve had a personal tutorial, these last few months, on how our development as the amazing creatures we are began with our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bodies</i>. Not that we didn’t have brains—so did apes, whales, and elephants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But it’s what our unique physical challenges compelled us to do, in order to survive over hundreds of thousands of years before civilization began, that made the brain develop as it did.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>[Note to myself: write the next post, after this, on why the human brain is now shrinking, at an alarming rate in evolutionary time: the data, the documentation, etc.]</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I knew this, about the body developing first, long before Josh was born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I became familiar with the work of the evolutionary biologists David Carrier and Dennis Bramble at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Utah</st1:placename></st1:place>, and Daniel Lieberman at Harvard, a quarter-century ago when they published their path-breaking article “How Running Made Us Human”—a cover story in the journal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The gist of their explanation was that prehistoric humans, lacking the physical power, speed, and built-in weapons (claws, sharp teeth, horns) of other big animals, eventually learned to survive by developing endurance rather than speed, to become successful “persistence hunters.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Years later, I elaborated on this revolutionary understanding of our origins in my book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Longest Race: A Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></i>But now, knowing this has become personal in a whole new way, because suddenly I’m seeing that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">development of an individual</i>person in some striking ways parallels what we now know was the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">development of our whole species</i>. </div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I got a first inkling of this when my daughter, Elizabeth would bring Josh into our living room, when he was still in his first year, and he’d start running back-and-forth between the easy chair and the couch—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wow</i>, ten feet without a fall!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Soon, he’d run the ten feet and hurl himself onto the couch like a twelve-year-old doing a belly flop into a pool, laughing with glee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Then, after a few weeks, he was running laps around the living room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>One day he ran 50 laps nonstop before I stopped counting, smiling and clapping and having the time of his life.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I should clarify that Josh is in no way slow in his development of language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He loves to talk, and surprises us every day (he’s now 2) with the new words and phrases he’s learned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But all the joy and delight that we (and he) experience as he develops his linguistic and mental faculties were clearly preceded by the joy and delight of learning to stand up, walk, run, do flying belly flops onto couches, and then go for long runs with “Gampa” (that’s me) on the trails and roads in our neck of the woods. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Significantly Josh did a lot of running before he learned the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">word</i> “run.”</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>It’s also significant that Josh’s running is very different from that of an adult who has taken up running for the first time at age 30 or 40.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>It’s not so mechanical or purposeful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I don’t think he starts out with the thought “Let’s run a mile.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>For one thing, I’m sure he has no idea what a “mile” is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>His running experience is far more varied, complex, and non-goal-oriented than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He obviously feels the action in a way a lot of adults don’t quite: for him it’s as much like the pleasure of dancing to the sound of a great song as it is a matter of going somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He’ll run with little skips, or leaps, sometimes waving his arms over his head like a World Cup player who’s just kicked a goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Or he’ll suddenly speed up and yell “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Go fast</i>!” but with no suggestion that he’s racing, just that this is fun!</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>But here’s the really interesting thing: as he runs, he’s also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">watching</i>, observing, with an acuity that often amazes me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>One bright clear day, around mid-morning he stopped, pointed at the sky, and said “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moon</i>!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I glanced up, laughed, and said “No, Josh, the moon comes at night, when it’s dark.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But he insisted, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moon</i>!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I looked up again, narrowed my eyes, and then yes, there it was—a tiny, faint white sliver in the blue-white sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I have good vision (still don’t wear glasses), but found myself wondering, how did he see that?</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Now, if he sees the moon, I know better than to question him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He’ll do the same thing with all kinds of other observations, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plane! Up dere!</i>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Or “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spider web, get a stick!</i>” (The first time we found a spider web on an outdoor chair, I had shown him how to brush it off with a stick.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’d look where he was pointing, look really hard, and then—sure enough—a few feet off the trail in a tangle of brush was a barely visible web.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>How did he see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">And then it hit me: Josh was instinctively doing what humans before civilization had to do to survive: He was watching, observing, using his eyes and ears with an acuity we modern grownups have largely abandoned. The “persistence hunting” theory wasn’t just about humans learning to outrun antelope or horses over long distances, but about all the tracking and observing they had to do before and during the chase, which might take hours.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">It struck me that maybe one of the reasons a lot of modern endurance athletes have moved from the roads to the trails is that trail-running (or hiking, or mountain biking or climbing) both requires and invites more active engagement with the environment—watching the ground for rocks and roots, or pitfalls or cliffs, or adapting to the sun or wind or ice as we go, and getting closer to the miracle of the living world we evolved in,</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>If you’re still learning (as we all are, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">especially</i>if you’re only 2 years old), your perceptions are exceeded only by your curiosity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As we run, Josh will often stop to examine something: an exotic beetle I would not have noticed, or an ant lugging a twig five times the size of its body, or a crack in the pavement, or a lizard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And he’ll turn to me and say “What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dat</i>?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Or he’ll cock his head, gaze in a particular direction, and ask “What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dat</i> sound?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Sometime it will take a few seconds to know what he’s hearing, because I have subconsciously screened it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>A few days ago, nearing the end of summer, he said “What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dat</i> sound?” and it took me a minute to realize: Crickets!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Had I gone the whole summer without consciously hearing (and appreciating) them?</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>There are 70 years of life experience separating Josh and me, but running with Josh is teaching me, as nothing else ever has, some important things about how we developed both as individuals and as a species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>That development began (and begins) with our physical experience—what we see and hear on the trail, or what we feel as we trip on a rock and lose balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Without that formative experience, there’d <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">be</i> no later on. There’d be no big-brain competence.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Commentators might talk about the virtues of a politician who seeks “balance” in his policies, between forceful action and prudent caution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But understanding the meaning of balance had to begin with learning not to fall on your face!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Today we extol the concepts of “standing up to terrorists,” “walking the walk,” “running for office,” “tripping up an adversary,” “stumbling in a new business adventure.” We speak of the “pursuit of happiness,” and a “nation that shall endure,” and on and on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Those are metaphors now, but they began with literal, physical, experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>It’s intriguing to me that although I’m one of the most experienced endurance runners on the planet, I can learn so much and so profoundly from a little guy who’s just starting out—but who clearly delights in what he’s learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Josh is reminding me of what it is to be young and fully alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He makes my heart leap.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I’m suddenly reminded of a poem William Wordsworth wrote a couple of centuries ago, which I last read when I was in college, and just now looked up again:</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>My heart leaps up when I behold</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>A rainbow in the sky:</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>So was it when my life began;</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>So is it now I am a man . . .</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The child is father of the Man . . . .</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What on Earth could that mean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">past</i>learns from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">future</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>If that is so, it suggests that we can only survive by having enough imagination and acuity to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">envision</i> the future—to be alert enough to see what lies ahead on the trail of life.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></div>http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/09/bodies-before-brains-how-we-got-so-smart.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-167514958828174670Thu, 04 Sep 2014 19:07:00 +00002014-09-04T12:07:58.192-07:00No Longer the 'Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner' <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Remember the famous story (and later the movie) of that title—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As a kid, I was always able to relate to it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>I was introverted and drawn to solitary pursuits, such as going off into the woods by myself to look for turtles or salamanders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As an adult, I’d always run alone—alone on wooded residential streets on a winter’s night, passing the warm lights of windows in which I caught glimpses of families eating dinner or watching TV; alone on forest trails hearing only the wind in the trees; alone on a highway shoulder braving the roar of long-haul trucks passing—but rarely with another runner.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>In recent years, distance running has become a much more social activity, and I have the impression that there are now millions of people who have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> run alone—and who also have a very amicable life with training partners, club members, and Sunday long-run groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But after high-school and college cross country, I never really got into that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The day I graduated from college, after seven years of running with teams, I remember standing in the amphitheater where our commencement ceremony was about to begin and feeling a sudden, nostalgic sadness that there’d be no cross-country for me that fall, and my running days must be over.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Running for adults, as we know it now, was still so rare that on that day that I didn’t even know it existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’d heard of the Boston Marathon, but thought of that as an event for Olympians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Other than that, I assumed running was for people between the ages of 15 and 21.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>So, if you had asked me in those days what the average age of a serious runner was, I’d probably have said around 18.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Today, it would be a different story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>If you said “suppose you see two people running along a bike path or trail together, and they’re an “average” pair, and you add their ages, what would the total be,” my answer now would probably be around 74.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>A typical pair might include a 36-year old and a 38-year-oold, or a 34 and a 40, or a 28 and a 46—all very common ages in today’s running population. In fact, there may be more 37s than 18s now, judging by how many kids no longer even go outdoors when there’s an Xbox or ipod to play with instead.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>If 74 would be a reasonable composite age for a pair of typical running companions today, then I guess my new situation is right in step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’m 72, and my new running companion—my grandson, Josh—is 2. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Together, we’re 74. </div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Josh doesn’t yet know that he’s “only” two, or that running a long distance is in any way unusual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>For me, though, this new partnership has been a huge revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As long as I can recall, I’ve heard of kids that age being called “toddlers,” and have just assumed that when they go anywhere under their own power, they “toddle.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Not so!</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Josh did indeed toddle for a few weeks when he was one, but even his toddle was a primordial run; he’d wobble across the living room slightly out of control and throw himself into the couch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Soon, he was running all the way around the perimeter of the room, then tackling the couch like a linebacker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And before long, running <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">laps</i> around the living room—smiling, laughing, waving his arms in the air like a striker who’s just scored a goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>His favorite activity was going outside for a walk, and .he didn’t discriminate between a “walk” and a “run”—when he wanted to go outside, he’d just plead “go walk?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And then, as soon as we got out to the road (a rural road where cars are rarely seen) he’d break into an exuberant run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>His legs were very short (he was only about two-feet six), but the tempo was almost the same as an adult’s—about 180 strides per minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He flew!</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Now, at age 2 ½ , Josh still has no knowledge that his grandfather is a runner, or indeed that there’s even any such a category of person as a runner, any more than there’s such a category of person as a “breather.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>By now, he and I have several times run a good distance together, but never with any particular encouragement from me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>If Josh wants to stop suddenly and play in the dirt for a few minutes pretending his hand is a bulldozer (he learned to say “bulldozer” before he learned “run”), that’s cool with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I intend never to be a Little League grandfather.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Josh might have the genes to be a good distance runner, but whether he pursues that or not will be entirely up to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’ll be just as happy if he decides to play soccer or violin.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>What I love is that I now have a wonderful running companion, and every time we head out the door it’s an adventure.</div>http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/09/no-longer-loneliness-of-long-distance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-6588538329877985600Mon, 01 Sep 2014 18:39:00 +00002014-09-01T11:39:22.944-07:00A Running Streak for the Ages <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Long-distance runners are a dogged breed, probably tracing to our genetic heritage as persistence hunters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>For some, that doggedness is manifested by the gritty way we run races (e.g., pushing through the glycogen-deprivation “wall” of a marathon, or late-hour delirium of an ultra), and for others it’s manifested by the obsessive way we get out for a run every day <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no matter what.</i></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Among the latter, there’s that small population of runners who call themselves “streakers,” not because they run naked in public (though, who knows, maybe some have done that too), but because they have run every day undaunted by illness, injury, hail, or or anything else, and have counted how many consecutive days they’ve done this so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>There’s even an organization, the United States Running Streak Association, Inc., which lists the names of runners who have exceptionally long streaks.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The official definition of a running streak, as adopted by the USRSA, is “to run at least one consecutive mile within each calendar day under one’s own power….”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And to be officially listed as a streaker on the USRSA Web site, you have to have kept your streak going for at least a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Some people have done it for 10, 20, or even 30 years, which makes my head hurt to even imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Last summer, I read with fascination about a guy who happens to live in the next town from me, Mark Covert, who had just ended his streak at a record 45 years.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">What motivates a streaker?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The Web site of USRSA recently published an article by Herb Fred, who had run about 120,000 miles until one day in 1987 he collided with a car that had run a red light, and smashed its windshield with his head. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>When he was released from the hospital 11 days later, he decided to resume his running on a treadmill, where neither rain nor hail nor errant automobiles could stop him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Since then, as of January, 2014, Fred—now 84 years old—had never missed a day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I could never do what Fred has done—nor would I even dream of trying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Fred notes that in his outdoor days, there was more risk of injuries, and that he’d had “just about all of them, from blisters to tendonitis to muscle tears to bloody urine, as well as numerous basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin.” And, he wrote, “I’ve also suffered from penile frostbite that resulted from a long run against a strong wind in sub-breezing temperature.” </div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I will consider myself very fortunate if I can still be running (or even alive!) at Herb Fred’s current age (I’m still a youthful 72), but there’s no way I’d give up the pleasures of mountain trails, fresh breezes off the Pacific, or a warm September sun on my bare skin, in order to achieve that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And as far as streaks go, by the USRSA definition, I could never be listed at all, since I’m sure I have never gone a year without a few days off—whether due to injury, family emergency, travel (although I have done a few runs back and forth through airports, as an alternative to vegetating on a plastic chair), or just plain fatigue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I have, however, achieved another sort of streak—instead of running one or more <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">miles</i> every <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">day</i>, competing in one or more long-distance <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">races</i>every <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">year</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>In November, 2012, I completed the JFK 50 Mile (<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s largest ultra), bringing my streak of consecutive years of racing to 56.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>After a few days off, I began training for #57, but as fate would have it, several circumstances prevented me from entering another race in 2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I suppose I could have limped through a 5K, but my streak was never an objective.</div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">And so, after a year of personal travail, perhaps a new streak will now begin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’m slower now, but still hoping to run another ultra in the coming year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The legs and lungs aren’t what they used to be, but the mountains and ocean breezes are still calling—as they have been since my prehistoric ancestors (and yours) began running a thousand centuries ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As individuals, we come and go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But the way our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">species</i> has continued to run, across the millennia—whether to hunt, carry messages, run races, beat Mark Covert’s record, or just feel the exhilaration of quick feet on a mountain trail—has been truly a streak for the ages.</div>http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-running-streak-for-ages.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-2209686380089823042Sun, 24 Aug 2014 23:03:00 +00002014-08-29T11:42:54.712-07:00100 Quotes on Running and Human Endurance, Redux . . . and oh yes, I'm back, with tales to tellFriends,<br /><br />I've been away for nearly a year, but will be day-to-day from September 1 on.&nbsp; Until then, may I suggest that you reawaken a few sleepy neurotransmitters by revisiting the post of September 2012 <strong>(100 Quotes on Running)</strong> (link below, on the right).&nbsp; That might be a good warm-up for what's coming in the next few months.http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2014/08/100-quotes-on-running-and-human.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-8078711029729163199Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:38:00 +00002013-10-07T12:38:41.809-07:00Running Form and Barefoot Running: an Interview <br />The barefoot running controversy has gone global.&nbsp; In India, which has about 1.2&nbsp; billion people (three times the population of the U.S.), running is gaining popularity fast, thanks in large part to the writing of runner/physician Rajat Chauhan.&nbsp; Dr. Chauhan writes for <em>Mint</em>, the Indian affiliate of the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, which recently interviewed me for a special feature on running form.&nbsp; Here are their somewhat provocative questions, and my responses:<br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraph" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">1)&nbsp; The running world seems to be divided into two bitter groups – the barefoot exponents and those who warn that shoes should never be taken off? Would it be fair to say that the right path is somewhere down the middle?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraph" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">Research by evolutionary biologists Daniel Lieberman, Dennis Bramble, and David Carrier and their colleagues finds that humans evolved as barefoot “persistence hunters,” and their findings have led to a romanticizing of barefoot running.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>However, 10,000 years of civilization have changed us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Personally, I could not run without good running shoes—not flimsy sandals or “minimalist” models, but shoes that are fairly sturdy and protective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>When I ran the 50-mile JFK 50-Mile (<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s largest ultramarathon) last year, I didn’t see any of the thousand runners in the race running barefoot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>On rocky trails, you don’t want to be accidentally kicking rocks with your toes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">2)&nbsp; I read somewhere that the barefoot running revival is happening for the fourth time in the last few decades. Can you throw some light on this as a runner who has been competing for the last 55 years?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">Several decades ago, serious long-distance runners began competing in “racing shoes”—much lighter shoes than the shoes we trained in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>A model called the “Nike Sock Racer” was little more than a sock!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I tried running a marathon in one of those models, and by the time I reached the finish the bottoms of my feet felt as if they were on fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>For anyone who needs some pronation control (a majority of us, I think), it’s better to run races in the same supportive shoes you train in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Yes, you’re carrying a bit more weight, but you’re also running with better biomechanical control, which is more energy-efficient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Elite runners who have flawless biomechanics and light body weight can (and do) run successfully with ultra-lightweight shoes.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">3)&nbsp; How do footwear and running form contribute to running injuries? Can you share any examples of balanced research you have come across on this topic?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">The links between footwear and vulnerability to injury are hugely complex, so I’m a bit skeptical about some of the findings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I think the book “Born to Run” was just plain wrong in its suggestion that Nike’s development of the modern running shoe caused countless injuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Even if solid correlations were found (and I’m not sure they were), correlation is not causation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Today’s runners may have more injuries than yesteryear’s, but I also have the impression that today’s runners more often take training shortcuts like trying to run a marathon within the first 6 months after taking up the sport.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>(Half a century ago, we believed you shouldn’t run a marathon until you’ve been practicing at shorter distances for several years at least, and I think that’s still sound advice.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">4)&nbsp; What is your position on the forefoot/heel strike debate? <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Most long-distance runners naturally touch down on their heels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Sprinters land on their forefeet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Forefoot running yields greater power, so you’d be unlikely to succeed as a sprinter or 400-meter runner if you land on your heels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But heel strike is more energy-efficient, and that’s a big factor in long-distance running.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Running with maximum power burns more energy, but for a short distances that doesn’t matter, just as it wouldn’t matter to the driver of a drag-race car if his engine burned 5 gallons per mile!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Elite runners at distances up to about 1500 or even 5000 meters tend to be forefoot strikers for this reason—power and speed are the name of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Ultrarunners are nearly all heel strikers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>At distances in between, you’ll see both kinds of heel strike succeeding.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">5)&nbsp; Another topic that seems to be going around in the running community is stride rate and over striding. What are your thoughts on this issue?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I’ve struggled with this issue, especially as I’ve gotten older and my natural stride length seems to have shortened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I do have the impression (from both personal experience and observation of others) that over-striding is a common mistake because it burns too much energy and interferes with the natural rhythms of the body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Top coaches and runners have always emphasized the importance of finding the right rhythm—or as athletes in other sports put it, the “groove.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As for stride rate, I’ve heard of the argument that the rate should be around 180 strides per minute (3 per second) even over varying distances and speeds, so that running slower entails taking shorter strides rather than slowing the tempo, and running faster entails taking longer strides but keeping the tempo fairly constant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>I’ve played with this idea in my training, and I think it makes sense.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">6)&nbsp; Is running form/technique by itself a panacea for all injuries? &nbsp;For instance, isn’t trading heel strike for forefoot impact just shifting the likelihood of injuries from knee to ankle? What other factors should runners keep in mind?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">No, form is not a panacea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Funny thing, when I first started writing about running nearly 40 years ago, I liked to say that one of the great appeals of the sport is its simplicity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But in its biomechanics and physiology, it is dauntingly complex!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Form alone is complex, but there are many other kinds of factors affecting the risk of injury:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>overtraining (too many miles per week), too much speed work, poorly-fitting shoes, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Regarding the forefoot-vs-heel-strike issue, I think each individual needs to find what feels most natural.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And regarding form in general, there are some basic rules: Run vertically with your center of gravity over your feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’ve seen people jogging with their legs out in front and their upper body leaning forward to keep balance, but with the butt hanging behind as if it doesn’t really want to go along for the ride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I call this “C-shape” running, and anyone who does it isn’t likely to enjoy the sport for long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">7)&nbsp; Which are the frontiers to be explored when it comes to research in running biomechanics? </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I haven’t kept up with the science, and in recent years have focused mainly on my own “experiment of one.” (I’m in my 56<sup>th</sup> consecutive year of running now, and fending off the injuries is definitely more of a challenge.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’d be very interested in seeing more study of the “tempo” issue—stride length and frequency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>My sense is that the received wisdom on this may be a little too simplistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I’d also like to see more work done on the form changes that take place with ageing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>If getting older necessarily means losing muscle mass and oxygen uptake capacity, are there ways that the older runner can modify his or her biomechanics to compensate somewhat?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in; tab-stops: 61.95pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">8)&nbsp; What are the biggest myths that exist around “running form” or the science of running?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">The idea that barefoot running will free you from injury is a myth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I say this with reluctance, because the science says we evolved as barefoot long-distance runners, and I like the idea of getting closer to my ancestral roots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But early humans also chased down lions or aurochs with spears, and I don’t think many people are itching to get back to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>In some respects, civilization is a one-way road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>And the roads we travel in the civilized world have hard pavement (ancient feet didn’t have to run on that), glass shards, trash, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The floors we walk on are hard and smooth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Maybe running barefoot works for rural Kenyan kids who grow up barefoot and have access to uncluttered dirt trails, but for people who’ve grown up in cities, wearing shoes, bare feet is a romance that won’t last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Maybe if a city park has a groomed trail of pine needles or wood chips, barefoot running on that trail might provide a limited form of enjoyment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But on public roads or rural trails with rocks and roots . . . no.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">9)&nbsp; Can you also share examples of interesting recent research around running technique that you may have come across recently?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">Others will be able to answer this question better than I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The best research I can cite is that of professors Daniel Lieberman at Harvard and Dennis Bramble and David Carrier at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Utah</st1:placename></st1:place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I don’t know if the evolutionary biologist Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont has done any research in this area, but he has written a couple if very good books on the origins of human running—and is a former U.S. ultrarunning champion himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxspmiddle" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxsplast" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16pt;">10.To conclude, what would be your definition of correct running form?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxsplast" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I don’t know whether there’s a “correct” form that’s right for everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Our running forms vary as much as our faces or personalities do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But in general, the ideal form for a given person is that which feels easiest and most rhythmic when kept up for the desired distance and speed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="yiv1502659895msolistparagraphcxsplast" style="margin: 1em 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/10/running-form-and-barefoot-running.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-75752010341358879Thu, 15 Aug 2013 05:40:00 +00002013-08-14T22:40:15.814-07:00Are Americans Getting Weaker?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Media almost never mention it, but there's an essential&nbsp;connection between the&nbsp;fitness of individual people and the strength of the society or country they're a part of.&nbsp; If we are soft or weak as individuals, there's no way our country can wield great strength and influence in the world.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As you must be aware, if you've been following columnists, bloggers, reporters, and TV talking heads, the past few years have been punctuated by hundreds of commentaries about the "decline" of America and its influence.&nbsp; That decline is real.&nbsp; But it's almost always described as a relative weakening of the US. as an international political and economic player.&nbsp; A lot of it is explained as due to the rise of China as an economic power, or of India as a cheaper competitor in the realm of medical and high-tech jobs, or of Korea and Taiwan in heavy industry.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Not mentioned is the possibility that the declining physical and mental fitness of&nbsp;individual Americans may be&nbsp;a primary determinant of how well our kids are doing in math&nbsp;and science, compared with Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or European kids (and increasingly with ambitious kids in 150 other countries).&nbsp;&nbsp;High numbers of young Americans are fat, clueless&nbsp;(they can name more airhead celebrities than great scientists or inventors), and often lacking in any sense of purpose.&nbsp; Why are we alive?&nbsp; Is a young American's goal in life to have all the right brands of shoes and clothes, and to make at least $500,000 a year in&nbsp;slick financial services or drugs or weight-loss schemes that don't require working up any sweat?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is now a critical question, because anyone having that kind of dream (or illusion) is headed for a crash.&nbsp; Politicians like to speechify about the "American dream," but that dream is now a tragic delusion.&nbsp; When the majority of a country's people are personally passive or weak (as perhaps as many as 200 million Americans are), their country is headed for a fall.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; How can I say this with any assurance?&nbsp; I'm not a prophet of doom, by any means.&nbsp; But I've had long experience in two fields that come together in a critical way: the physical and mental endurance of humans as individuals, and the long-run sustainability of human civilization.&nbsp; I've been a competitive&nbsp;endurance runner for the past 56 years, and I've worked as an editor for environmental scientists for most of those years.&nbsp; And I'm familiar with a phenomenon of human history that isn't given much attention in our educational institutions but really should be: that the great regional civilizations of the past have often collapsed because their leaders were unaware of certain basic principles of sustainability that our scientists <em>are</em> familiar with.&nbsp; Now we have not a regional but a global civilization, and it is increasingly vulnerable.&nbsp; (Past collapses were&nbsp;isolated by&nbsp;by the geographical barriers of oceans, deserts, mountain ranges, and the long times it would take for diseases or other dangers to travel.)&nbsp; America is still the single most influential country in determining the human future, but with about half of the population still largely oblivious to the dangers of climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation, and ecological failure, the U.S. is falling behind--and the whole world is faltering.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, what's this connection I keep harping about, between individual and societal strength?&nbsp; It's dauntingly complex (one of the reasons it's being ignored, in a culture that favors simplistic explanations), but here are a few of the connections being studied by scientists who are now deeply alarmed by our withering prospects.<br /><ul><li>As mentioned in my book <em>The Longest Race</em>, a study of thousands of youths in Sweden found that boys who get serious cardiovascular exercise (such as cross-country running or skiing) between the ages of 15 and 18 test higher on IQ and reach higher levels of academic achievement than those who don't.</li><li>Also as discussed in that book (and in this blog), a study by Canadian and British researchers found that taxi drivers who rely on their own mental mapping skills to navigate city streets have a significantly larger hippocampus (the brain's center of navigational memory) than those who rely on GPS.</li><li>Hundreds of studies confirm that vigorous physical and mental activity greatly reduces the risk of debilitating illnesses or dementia in old age.&nbsp; People in their 50s, 60s, or 70s can provide wisdom and leadership to society if they are mentally and physically healthy, but may be dead weight to anyone but their families and a few friends if they become senile.</li></ul>We're all aware of how&nbsp;precocious teens and twenty-somethings are advancing our technology.&nbsp; But who is&nbsp;advancing&nbsp;our knowledge of how our technological society depends on the life of our planet for every breath or step we take?&nbsp; Or our knowledge of the history of human societies of the past--and under what conditions they thrived or collapsed?&nbsp; How many people now know that the world's population has increased more in the past 40 years than in the previous 4 <em>million</em> years?&nbsp; Or how many have thought about what the effects of that will be on our lives in the coming decades?&nbsp; In all these areas, the public voice is silent.&nbsp; Our public life has become disconnected from&nbsp;any serious concern for our personal fitness, and that disconnection is a form of lobotomy.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It has been well established, though very little publicized, that the human brain has actually diminished in size since the beginning of civilization.&nbsp; I had grew up believing that it is getting ever bigger, and I can remember science-fiction speculations that some day, centuries from now, humans would have evolved into giant heads--super-brains with vestigial legs and hands.&nbsp; As it turns out, though, the brain of a 21st-century human is 10 to 20 percent smaller than that of the prehistoric Cro Magnon people&nbsp;who lived around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.&nbsp;Evidently, our brains have actually <em>shrunk</em> since civilization began.&nbsp;<em>Why</em>?&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There are several theories, but an emerging&nbsp;possibility I've been exploring is that the decline has something to do with our technology.&nbsp; It's technology that has most distinguished civilized humans from the hunter-gatherers who preceded us.&nbsp; And while technology has increased our original powers vastly, it has also made us increasingly dependent it to get things done and to keep us satisfied, entertained, and protected.&nbsp; Evolution no longer weeds out weakness in&nbsp;humans&nbsp;as it did for hundreds of millennia.&nbsp;It no longer culls the herd.&nbsp;The cumulative effect may be an increase in weakness--physical, mental, and moral--that now poses unprecedented challenges to our long-range survival.&nbsp; And the countries where technology is most advanced&nbsp;and available to make life easier and safer may be the ones where the weakness is growing fastest.&nbsp; If that turns out to be true, it will provoke some of the most&nbsp;soul-searching and contentious&nbsp;debate we humans have ever experienced.&nbsp; Stand by.<br /><br />http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/08/are-americans-getting-weaker.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-7646316078810045877Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:18:00 +00002013-08-08T15:14:31.090-07:00GPS and brain shrinkperformance-enhancing technologiestechs that weaken usTech Devices and Vices: I Want Your Story&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm a guy who greatly&nbsp;values his&nbsp;independence and self-reliance. So I'm ambivalent about tech devices that are supposed to make life ever more effort-free and fun, but also make&nbsp;us more physically and mentally dependent on&nbsp;capabilities that&nbsp;take over from those&nbsp;of our own bodies and brains.&nbsp; To tell the truth, I prefer&nbsp;hard challenges to&nbsp;easy, guaranteed-risk-free&nbsp;fun.&nbsp; I'd rather run the Badwater 137 miler again (across Death Valley and up Mt. Whitney) than have a lifetime free pass to Disney World.&nbsp;&nbsp;The older I get, the more&nbsp;eager I am not&nbsp;to waste a day.&nbsp;I have no interest in a ride that&nbsp;gives me&nbsp;the&nbsp;passive thrill of being strapped into a&nbsp; flying chair.&nbsp; I'd rather go for a long run.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Or climb a mountain, or do a hike with friends, or join a&nbsp;group of people fighting&nbsp;an approaching forest fire, or haul rocks from a stream bed and hand-mix&nbsp;mortar&nbsp;to build a flight of stone steps.&nbsp; Or cook a dinner with fresh ingredients from scratch, or have a lively conversation with bright people who challenge my thinking or have&nbsp;thought-provoking stories to tell.&nbsp; All of it without so much as a&nbsp;smart&nbsp;phone in my pocket.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And that's where you come in.&nbsp; I'd&nbsp;be interested in hearing&nbsp;from you, if you're willing, about an experience you've had (or a perspective you have) about one of the many "technologies of fun or convenience" that have come into our lives in recent years or decades.&nbsp;The little devices or apps that relieve you of a bit more of your physical or mental&nbsp;effort--whether it's an automatic&nbsp;door opener,&nbsp;the GPS in your car, or a performance-enhancing drug.&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm collecting anecdotes for a forthcoming project, and I hope you can be a part of it.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I got the idea a few years ago while doing research for my book <em>The Longest Race</em>, which was published last year.&nbsp; I had come across a study of hundreds of London taxi drivers, in which researchers&nbsp;did brain scans to compare two groups: drivers who had relied on GPS to find their way around the city for at least the previous three years, and&nbsp;those who had relied only on their own knowledge of the city's notorious tangle of streets.&nbsp; The study found that in the drivers&nbsp;who relied on GPS, the part of the brain that is central to mental mapping and memory--the hippocampus--had shrunk, and was signficantly smaller on average than that of those who had navigated without GPS.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That didn't exactly surprise me. As a runner, I know that a muscle that isn't exercised will weaken, so maybe that's also true of the brain. But&nbsp;it&nbsp;still&nbsp;hit me as&nbsp;a revelation.&nbsp; I began to wonder about other devices (and apps) designed to make work or play easier.&nbsp; Is there a cost to such increasing ease?&nbsp; If more and more of our tasks are taken over by little technologies, are we becoming more generally passive or weak&nbsp;or dependent--or in some sense <em>less alive?</em><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm not anti-tech.&nbsp; Technology has been put to many wondrous and life-enhancing--and life-saving--uses.&nbsp; But it has also been put to destructive or just plain absurd uses.&nbsp; If you've had an encounter with a device that you think might be of questionable value, I'd be interested in hearing.&nbsp; Some examples of devices or apps I might question:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Gasoline-powered leaf blower<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Automatic door-opener at Whole Foods or Walmart<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Data-collecting toilet (that automatically scans your poop and transmits data on any medical abnormalities to the health department) (No kidding!)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Performance-enhancing drugs of the kind used by Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, and a few hundred other rich athletes<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Runner's heart monitor and pedometer<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Phone menus, courtesy of your insurance company, bank, or any other large organization you have a problem with and want to talk to someone in authority about<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Power screwdrivers<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Power lawnmowers for&nbsp;small suburban lawns<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Athletic shoes with steel springs in the midsoles<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Microwave ovens<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Hands-free voice recognition app for texting while driving<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Porn websites <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Self-checkout in stores<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Pain meds advertised on TV<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Prescription drugs that only a licensed physician can&nbsp;determine the need for, advertised on TV to the general public<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -&nbsp; Robo calls from political campaigns<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Or any of a thousand others.&nbsp;&nbsp;If you have an anecdote or opinion about any single one of them--or about their cumulative effects--let me know!&nbsp; I'd also like to expand the above list, if you can help me think of devices you&nbsp;find to be&nbsp;intriguing, even if you're not yet sure what to make of them. You can either comment here or send an e-mail to me at:&nbsp; <a href="mailto:edayres66@yahoo.com">edayres66@yahoo.com</a>.<br /><br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/07/tech-devices-and-vices-i-want-your-story.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-2639031528884667800Tue, 07 May 2013 22:23:00 +00002013-05-07T23:01:25.525-07:00Boston Marathon bombing; What the Media Missed in Boston; The Boston Marathon's Other heroes; the Boston Bombing's Untold StoryBoston Marathon Bombing: the Part the Media Missed&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; News of the Boston Marathon bombing came to us as&nbsp;two huge stories and just a hint of a third.&nbsp; A fourth story, the most important one, was never mentioned.&nbsp; I followed the news with intense interest, not only because I had friends in that race, but because the Boston Marathon had for years&nbsp;been the holy grail of my dreams&nbsp;when I was a young runner.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The first of the big news stories was&nbsp;that of a terrible attack that, unlike the bombings which have killed and maimed Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, was a horror we were actually allowed to see without censorship.&nbsp; Recall that horrific photo of a man being wheeled away from the carnage with both of his lower legs blown off--the protruding bone and gore right there for us to witness.&nbsp; That had happened to hundreds of young American men in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the media had never shown us the photos.&nbsp; This was new.&nbsp; But while the captions and commentaries from Boston expressed nothing but horror, let's not kid ourselves: the audience ratings got a huge boost.&nbsp; (If you watch TV, you might be aware that detective and cop shows these days seem to be in a sort of ripped-off-legs-and-arms race, as each show tries to boost its ratings by showing more gore than the next: Witness the episode of the show NCIS that featured scenes of several murder victims who'd been cut and mixed together by some evildoer into a "meat jigsaw puzzle." When my wife and I saw that, we gagged, but apparently&nbsp;that kind of scene&nbsp;titillates enough viewers to keep the producers vying to see how they can&nbsp;make their stories&nbsp;even more gruesome.)&nbsp; The Boston bombing was a <em>real-life</em> horror show, and behind the genuinely saddened faces of the reporters and news anchors, it was making money for their corporate managers and investors.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The second Boston story, which perhaps served as a kind of redemption for the unabashed&nbsp; sensationalism of the first, focused on the public backlash at the cowardace of the bombers, a redemption best expressed by the "Boston Strong" banners that began to appear within days, and by the public rallying of even such passionate Boston rivals as New York Yankee fans to the notion that beneath the rivalries of sports, we are all united in our outrage and determination not to be intimidated by terrorists.&nbsp; With this story, a wave of sentimentality washed&nbsp;through the country.&nbsp; I feel compelled to observe, however, that sentimentality is notoriously&nbsp;easy to feel, and it costs nothing to express outrage.&nbsp; To actually <em>do</em> something about such violations of our civility is much harder.&nbsp; The media are far more inclined to show the "Boston Strong" signs than to pursue the difficult question of how Boston (or America) can actually get stronger.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A third story, sketchily touched on, was the disturbing question of why two young men who'd emigrated&nbsp;to America from a more troubled part of the world would be motivated to do such an unthinkable thing to their host country.&nbsp; Reporters found little or no enlightenment about the suspects' mental state, and quickly came to the&nbsp;all-too-easy&nbsp;conclusion that the brothers had been diabolically influenced by jihadist extremism.&nbsp; That, of course, didn't&nbsp;address the fact that those two young men were only the latest in a long series of mass murderers (in Newtown, Aurora, Columbine, Oklahoma City,&nbsp;Virginia Tech, and a&nbsp;hundred other places) of whom the majority were home-grown Americans who had nothing to do with&nbsp;jihadist grievances.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The fourth story, not told at all, is in my view the most important: the story of the marathon runners who were there that day and what their&nbsp;accomplishment can tell&nbsp;us about the current state of&nbsp;our nation and world.&nbsp;Every one of the more than 22,000 men and women who crossed that now infamous finish line had spent hundreds of hours, most of them for&nbsp;years, in&nbsp;fair weather and foul, training for this day with a dedication that <em>could</em>&nbsp;have been&nbsp;an epochal inspiration for the 99.9 percent of Americans who do not practice such discipline.&nbsp; The trouble, I suppose, is that&nbsp;today's reporters are too lazy or too poorly educated in the skills of serious journalism--or too&nbsp;directed otherwise by their employers--to have seen that possibility.&nbsp; But the truth, right before our eyes, yet unmentioned by the reporters who flocked to the scene, was that one of the world's greatest assemblages of strong, enduring, and&nbsp;dedicated people had come to Boston to prove to themselves and their friends and families that ordinary humans can achieve far more than most of us ever thought.&nbsp; In a world (and country) struggling to achieve the goals of a better life we profess to believe in, that Boston Marathon demonstration of human potential and uplift--and its companion demonstrations in the marathons of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Washington, DC, and a hundred others--should have been big news whether bombers had done their dirty deeds or not.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;What journalists&nbsp;could have probed is the now voluminous evidence from physiological and neurological science that cardiovascular fitness,&nbsp;along with&nbsp;the kind of mental discipline practiced by the runners who came to Boston has tremendous--potentially world-changing--benefits for both physical <em>and mental </em>health.&nbsp;&nbsp;That, in itself, isn't news--although&nbsp;the media give far too little attention to it.&nbsp; But&nbsp;the fact that the number of Americans who have chosen to follow&nbsp;a hard new path to high-level health and capability has grown from a few thousands to&nbsp;more than&nbsp;50 million&nbsp;since I first ran Boston in the 1960s--that is huge news.&nbsp;The police and FBI&nbsp;moved with admirable swiftness to tackle&nbsp;the immediate emergency, but it was the runners who demonstrated one of the essential a keys to&nbsp;coping successfully with a much more&nbsp;pervasive&nbsp;and long-term threat.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the winter of 1960, president-elect John F. Kennedy introduced an idea that&nbsp; may have seemed too radical at the time to have much immediate impact on the country's course, but which took root and has become what may yet be a critical determinant of the country's future.&nbsp; Kennedy introduced his idea in an article for <em>Sports Illustrated</em>, titled "The Soft American."&nbsp; At the time, the United States was facing the very real threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, whose fist-pounding leader Nikita Khruschev had famously told America, "We will bury you!"&nbsp; Kennedy knew the U.S. would need to heighten its military readiness, but he also knew something that in the long run may prove more important: that even the most powerful military on Earth can't win the day for its people if the people are weak.&nbsp; Kennedy also knew that the kind of weakness that threatens a society's ability to survive is not just a weakness of body, but of intellect and spirit.&nbsp; He had been alarmed to learn that American boys who'd been screened for military service over the previous few years had been embarrassingly unfit.&nbsp;&nbsp;One of every two&nbsp;of them had been rejected by the military as "morally, physically, or mentally unfit."&nbsp; And that was half a century before the obesity epidemic hit the fan.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Kennedy was convinced that if America was to survive in dangerous age, its people need to be fit not just for pullups and 1-mile runs, but for the ever more demanding mental and moral challenges of keeping our country secure while also keeping it free.&nbsp; In his "Soft American" article, he wrote, "if we fail to encourage physical development and prowess, we will undermine our capacity for thought, for work, and for the use of those skills vital to an expanding and complex America."&nbsp; He knew that building fitness isn't just mindless "jock stuff"--it involves developing the disciplines of long-range planning,&nbsp;dedicated practice, mental toughness, and ability to rebound from injury or setback.&nbsp; Those are also the qualities it takes to build a strong and resilient&nbsp;society.&nbsp; The year Kennedy wrote his article, several hundred runners entered the Boston Marathon.&nbsp; In 2013, a hundred times that many did--and tens of thousands more <em>wished</em> they could.&nbsp; And while the race volunteers and others&nbsp;near the finish line who rushed to help the bombing victims were heroically rersponding to an immediate crisis, the runners who'd dedicated themselves to reaching that finish line were--whether they thought of it this way or not--responding to an ongoing <em>national</em> crisis, as heroes of another kind.&nbsp; If a majority of Americans had their kind of dedication and grit, the country would be vastly stronger and more free of fear and insanity than it&nbsp;presently&nbsp;is.&nbsp; That's the story the media missed.http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/05/boston-marathon-bombing-part-media.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-5340170170164179413Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:21:00 +00002013-03-26T23:21:20.606-07:00The Skill of Envisioning&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In my book&nbsp;<em>The</em> <em>Longest Race</em>, while recalling a momentous ultra I ran a few weeks after the 9-11 attacks in 2001, I alluded to a radical theory I have about human progress.&nbsp; (After all, when you practice long-distance running, you're practicing how to make progress toward a finish line, and I had long since learned that reaching a finish line and reaching other kinds of goals involve a lot of the same factors.)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My theory was that one of the key factors in human progress--envisioning outcomes--was one of the earlierst skills the human species ever developed, and was key to our ability not only to survive in a world of far more powerful, fleet-footed, sharp-toothed animals, but ultimately to build civilization and dominate all other life.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I'd been running for many years, and had also experienced some&nbsp;intriguing success in my own ability to envision, but had never particularly connected those disparate skills--until I became familiar with the "Running Man" theory of human evolution first suggested by the biologists David Carrier and Dennis Bramble of the University of Utah and independently by the evolutionary biologist Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont and, more recently, by the evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman at Harvard.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Running Man theory&nbsp;is that humans began their epochal evolutionary journey by learning to outrun all those faster, more powerful, and dangerous competitors, not by outsprinting but by outlasting them.&nbsp; For decades, scientists had been blinded to this possibility by&nbsp;an obvious rhetorical question: How could running be an evolutionary advantage for a species that was slow?&nbsp; The scientists had been focused on sprinting speed, which of course is what we see emphasized in all of our popular culture and enteertainment: the speed of touchdown runs, fast-breaks, 100-meter dashes in the tradition of Jesse Owens and "Bullet" Bob Hayes, and innumerable cop chases.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But around a quarter-century ago, this rhetorical question actually got an answer.&nbsp; It wasn't&nbsp;the early humans'&nbsp;inferior slow-footed sprinting, but their superior&nbsp;<em>endurance</em> running that enabled them to outlast the faster animals they hunted for food.&nbsp; In articulating this theory (which eventually got a cover story in the top-tier scientific journal <em>Nature</em>), the scientists' focus was on heat buildup and cooling.&nbsp; If a human hunter (or band of hunters) chased a horse or woolly mammoth, the quarry would easily get away but would have to stop and rest, and&nbsp;if the hunters caught up and the bigger animal would have to sprint away again--and then again--the&nbsp;big animal would&nbsp;eventually become overheated and have&nbsp;to succumb.&nbsp; The humans, with their bare skin and higher surface-to-volume ratios, would cool more easily and therefore be able to keep up the pursuit (and their strength) much longer.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; While the scientists' focus was on&nbsp;the humans'&nbsp;superior&nbsp;cooling, my own focus--after half a century of competititve running--was on another question: when the prey sprinted out of sight, how did the&nbsp; hominid hunter know it was still there (just around the bend or over the hill), close enough to keep chasing?&nbsp; The scientists' knew the Running Man theory wasn't just conjecture; there were several&nbsp;tribes&nbsp;who practiced that kind of hunting--notably in the Kalahari Desert in Africa and in&nbsp;the vast Copper Canyon&nbsp;of Mexico.&nbsp; The hunters in those places would chase animals for hours before finally running them down.&nbsp; Other, nonhuman, predators generally give up the chase much more quickly: Out of sign (or smell), out of mind.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It seemed necessary, then, to hypothesize that early humans were endowed not only with exceptional physical endurance, but with exceptional ability to envision.&nbsp; One reason our brains grew bigger was to accommodate our developing capacity to envision the outcome (catching the animal being pursued) that had been out of sight not just for a few seconds but for many minutes--or even hours).&nbsp; My radical theory: Endurance and mental envisioning of distant outcomes developed together.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Endurance, as we all now know, is not inborn--even if the capacity for it is.&nbsp; Although the genetic capacity for learning it may vary among individuals (in their percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers, surface-to-volume ratios at healthy weight, etc.), endurance is primarily a learned skill.&nbsp; With practice, men or women who have mostly fast-twitch muscles or&nbsp;large frames can still become good endurance athletes.&nbsp; And a guy with all the ideal endowment for distance running (lean, lightweight, all slow-twitch) still can't run long distances without hitting a wall if he doesn't train.&nbsp; My inference: If endurance is a learned skill (we're born to run, but only if we practice), then envisioning, too, is a thing that has to be practiced to be effective.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It may seem a huge leap to see a connection between my personal experience as a runner and my experience in envisioning future outcomes.&nbsp; But as one of the most experienced runners alive today (I've been running competitively for 56 years without a break), I'd be crazy not to assume those thousands of hours have activated not only the part of my brain that enables the skill of endurance but also have activated the part that enables the skill of envisioning what's around the next bend or over the next hill&nbsp;in the journey of life--whether&nbsp;on the literal trail&nbsp;of a long-distance foot&nbsp;race&nbsp;or the macrocosmic&nbsp;human journey into an increasingly murky&nbsp;future.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Whatever the answer, I'm aware that over my lifetime, I have envisioned a series of&nbsp;developments to which our culture (and media) at large have been largely blind.&nbsp; To list them may seem like a kind of bragging, but in this&nbsp;time&nbsp;of growing threats to the human prospect I think it would be a mistake for anyone who has even an inkling of an idea about how to help us find our way out of the growing darkness to hide his light under a bushel.&nbsp; To be fair, though, I'll point out that the incidents I'll cite are all well documented.&nbsp; If something momentous happened in 2000 that I envisioned in 1970, I can produce documentation from 1970.&nbsp; And while the experience of a single individual is what many scientists might dismiss as anecdotal, I'd also suggest that there's too much here to be just a series of coincidences.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Before I get to the list, one very salient point: If envisioning outcomes is truly a skill for which we humans have extraordinary genetic capability, then the prevailing lack of intelligent envisioning--of the eventual consequences of climate change, overpopulation, declining biodiversity, and protracted war--suggests that our culture, media, and educational institutions have all failed us tragically, whether in America or Afghanistan, red states or blue states.&nbsp; And now, my list:<br /><br /><strong>1950s</strong>: <em><strong>Discovering organic and natural foods</strong></em>:&nbsp; In the 1950s when&nbsp;I was still a kid, my father and I met a radical doctor who told us of his belief that Americans' health was being dangerously undermined by excessive consumption of highly refined sugars and grains, and by hydrogenated fats (lard, margarine, or Crisco).&nbsp;&nbsp;The doctor's&nbsp;logic and evidence were persuasive, and in 1954 I adopted his whole-grains, no-preservatives, no-transfats diet--partly for health and partly because I was convinced it would make me a better runner.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><strong>Four decades later</strong></em>, the U.S. government issued its first warnings that excessive consumption of sugar,&nbsp;highly processed foods, and transfat were contributing to heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.<br /><br /><strong>1970:&nbsp; <em>Envisioning cars that don't pollute</em></strong>:&nbsp; In the 1960s, the idea of an emissions-free electric car was considered by the American auto industry--and the public--to be a long-failed experiment.&nbsp; But along with a few others, I envisioned a big future for such cars, as documented in a report I wrote under a contract to the U.S. Department of Transportation, titled "The Economic Impact of Conversion to a Nonpolluting Automobile" (1970).<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><strong>Four decades later</strong></em>, the first hybrid-electric cars were introduced, soon followed by the all-electric Chevrolet Volt.<br /><br /><strong>1970s</strong>:&nbsp; <strong><em>Marathon running going big-time in New York City</em></strong>:&nbsp; In the 1960s, there were a few hundred adult long-distance runners in New York, but I envisioned a time when running would be a liberating passion for city dwellers who lived and worked in confined spaces.&nbsp; I ran in several obscure marathons staged in the streets of Yonkers and the Bronx in the '60s (there were about 50 participants each year), and when permission was granted to run a marathon in Manhattan, I jumped at the chance.&nbsp; I thought it might be a watershed moment for urban culture.&nbsp; The first New York City Marathon was held in 1970, and I ran and finished third.&nbsp; There were 57 finishers in that first race.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><strong>Four decades later</strong></em>, the New York Marathon has more than 45,000 competitors each year, with tens of thousands more turned away due to limited capacity.<br /><br /><strong>1970s</strong>:&nbsp; <strong><em>Upheaval of the American auto industry</em></strong>:&nbsp; In the 1950s and '60s, the U.S. auto industry ruled the world--and was careless about quality control.&nbsp; General Motors (GM) was the largest, wealthiest corporation in the world, and the company shrugged off criticism by Ralph Nader that its cars had far too many defects.&nbsp;&nbsp;I&nbsp;had reason to&nbsp;believe&nbsp;GM's complacency would come back to haunt it, and in 1969 I wrote a book, <em>What's Good for GM</em>, warning of that outcome.&nbsp; The publisher placed an ad for that book, along with Daniel Schorr's <em>Don't Get Sick in America</em>--an early warning that America's health-care system was heading for trouble--in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><strong>Four decades later</strong></em>:&nbsp; By the turn of the 21st century, the Japanese and Korean auto makers had seized on&nbsp;the opportunity to sell cars with greater emphasis on quality and reliability and had seized about half of the market share formerly held by&nbsp;the American manufacturers.&nbsp; A&nbsp;few years later, GM was forced to declare bankruptcy.<br /><br /><strong>1970s</strong>:&nbsp; <strong><em>Nuclear</em></strong> <em><strong>threats:</strong></em>&nbsp;By the late 1950s, Americans were worried about the threat of Soviet nuclear attack, to the extent that many people built bomb shelters under their houses, and school children&nbsp;participated in "duck-and-cover" drills--as if that would offer any protection from a bomb that could almost instantly vaporize both&nbsp;us and the desks we were ducking under.&nbsp; By the&nbsp;1970s, a new concern was&nbsp;being expressed by a small group of scientists. The&nbsp;Los Alamos physicist Theodore B. Taylor, who had designed the largest fission atomic bomb&nbsp;ever exploded on Earth (detonated on Anawatak Atoll in the Pacific in 1955), began issuing quiet warnings to the U.S. government and international nuclear agencies that the greatest threat was no longer thermonuclear war between the superpowers, but the risks of leaks, thefts, or hijackings of critical nuclear materials, and the growing dangers of nuclear blackmail or&nbsp;terrorist attacks.&nbsp; In the early '70s,&nbsp;Dr. Taylor wrote a&nbsp;journal outlining those growing dangers and hired me to edit it.&nbsp; Envisioning is never a one-person skill, but rather an ability to grasp and expand&nbsp;on the vision of others you work with or who came before you.&nbsp; Taylor was no doubt influenced by the concerns of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who'd come to regret his role in leading the&nbsp;Los Alamos project that built the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima&nbsp;and Nagasaki.&nbsp; And I took to heart the hard facts Taylor had compiled.&nbsp; But the&nbsp;nuclear agencies--and the world--paid little heed to&nbsp;his warnings.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong><em>Now, four decades later</em></strong>, while no nuclear&nbsp;bomb has yet been exploded by&nbsp;terrorists over Washington, DC or New York or London,&nbsp;we are hearing explicit threats from the rogue nation of North Korea, and the even greater dangers of a coup by anti-American jihadists in unstable Pakistan, where extremists could seize a large nuclear capability.<br /><br /><strong>1980s:</strong> <strong><em>The running boom in America</em></strong>:&nbsp; By the mid-1970s, I'd noticed that the population of serious long-distance runners in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania had gone from a few hundred to at least a few thousands.&nbsp; I felt strongly that an important new phenomenon was getting a foothold (literally!)&nbsp;not only in New York but all across a country that had become too soft for its own good.&nbsp; In 1960, president-elect John F. Kennedy had written an article for <em>Sports Illustrated</em>, "The Soft American," in which he observed that half of all young men being considered for military service were being rejected by the Selective Service as "mentally, physically, or morally unfit."&nbsp; He had argued, "If we fail to encourage physical fitness, we will undermine our capacity for thinking, work, and use of the skills vital to a complex and developing America."&nbsp;Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but by the mid-70s I saw that growing numbers of Americans were taking his concerns to heart--we were bicycling, hiking, and running not just for the fun or competition but for the physical and mental health benefits.&nbsp; The times were a-changin', as Bob Dylan intoned.&nbsp; In 1977, I launched a magazine, <em>Running Times</em>, which envisioned an era when running would become a passion for millions of people whose lives would by transformed by it.&nbsp;&nbsp;At the time, the number of serious runners in the U.S. was in the thousands<em><strong>.</strong></em><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong><em>Three decades later</em></strong>, surveys by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association found that the number of Americans who were regular, "lifestyle" runners had climbed to more than 49 million--more than the number of people playing baseball and basketball combined.<br /><br /><strong>1992</strong>:&nbsp; <em><strong>Climate change:</strong></em>&nbsp; In 1992, I was in my second year as a senior staff member at the Worldwatch Institute (publisher of the annual <em>State of the World</em>).&nbsp; That year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a consortium of the world's top climate scientists, issued a landmark warning that human-caused global warming would generate increasingly frequent and intense extreme-weather events.&nbsp; As editor of the Institute's magazine <em>World Watch</em>, I wrote a series of essays on what the scientists' warnings might mean for the human future, and especially the future of coastal cities.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><strong>Two decades later</strong></em>: All of the trends the climate scientists warned of, and that&nbsp;I'd&nbsp;tried to help lay&nbsp;readers to picture--record wildfires, record floods, a mile-wide tornado, rogue&nbsp;hurricanes, disrupted ecosystems, and one other kind of catastrophe (see below)--had escalated even faster than the scientists had first projected.<br /><br /><strong>2005: <em>Hurricane Katrina</em></strong>:&nbsp; In 2000, I was invited to lead a seminar on environmental security at the U.S. National Defense University in Washington, DC.&nbsp; In my presentation, I noted that the climate changes we were experiencing made it highly probable that, sooner or later,&nbsp;the city of New Orleans would be hit be a catastrophic storm surge which--if generated by a category 4 or 5 hurricane--could wipe out the city.&nbsp; In 2001 and 2002 I was&nbsp;invited back, and presented the same scenario for new groups.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong><em>Two years later</em></strong>: Hurricane Katrina, a category 3, hit New&nbsp;Orleans--and delivered a&nbsp;clear message about what would (or will) happen with a more powerful storm.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, there it is.&nbsp; Do I claim to have an ability to predict?&nbsp; No.&nbsp; Anyone who claims to be able to see the future&nbsp;is at best&nbsp;naive or deluded, and at worst a blasphemous charlatan.&nbsp; What I do claim--in accordance with well established scientific principles--is that by closely observing what&nbsp;is happening today and has happened in the past, we can envision what is most probable for the future.&nbsp; As I've noted above, doing that&nbsp;well is a skill, and no algorithm has yet given us that&nbsp;capability because no&nbsp;real-life phenomenon&nbsp;of major importance is ever the outcome of just one or two quantifiable factors.&nbsp; Those of us who are skilled at envisioning important future outcomes aren't even conscious of all the factors we take into account, any more than a skilled&nbsp; basketball player&nbsp;is conscious of all the&nbsp;all the many&nbsp;biomechanical, neurological,&nbsp;emotional, and&nbsp;tactical factors he employs in an off-balance drive to the basket.&nbsp; But we are at least aware of the need not to be thrown off, in our envisioning of the future, by the sway of sentiment, myths, corporate advertising, political propaganda, publicity, rumor, scapegoating, undiscriminating Google searches, and particularly the appeal of very simple answers, all of which can distract or obfuscate truths that might otherwise be obvious.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With those caveats in mind, in my next post I will venture to apply my skill at envisioning to the ever-moving target of the <em>next</em>&nbsp;three decades,&nbsp;as seen from the perspecctive of 2013.&nbsp; If I should be fortunate enough to live to 100 years (not likely, actually), to see how well my forecast turned out, the one thing I'm fairly sure of is&nbsp;this:&nbsp; How&nbsp;skillful I prove to be at envisioning the world of the 2040s will be closely linked to how well I have succeeded in keeping my mind and body free of the crippling addictions and blinding distractions of the sprint culture.&nbsp; We were born to run slowly, to persist, to be patient, and to envision with care and clear heads, and right now our civilization is moving far too blindly and fast to be sustained.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-skill-of-envisioning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-4699609236932187605Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:57:00 +00002013-02-25T11:57:27.924-08:00"The Longest Race" featured on NPR&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; My&nbsp; book <em>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance</em> caught the attention of National Public Radio&nbsp;host Bill Littlefield earlier this month, and he did an interview with me that was broadcast on 220 NPR stations around the country.&nbsp; It was a little intimidating, I'll admit, because Bill was in Boston (at host station&nbsp;WBUR) whle I was in Pasadena, CA, at Southern California Public Radio, with a headset and a mike--and I'm frankly a lot more comfortable with a water bottle and a pair of running shoes than with a headset and a mike.&nbsp; Twice during the interview, I was in the midst of&nbsp;an interchange with the guy I could only hear, not see,&nbsp;when my headset fell off.&nbsp; But it really wasn't the headset that discombobulated me so much as the fact that I was all alone in the studio, in a big swivel chair in front of a semicircular array of equipment that looked like what they had at the NASA Mission Control in Houston on the day of the first moon landing, back when&nbsp;I was young.&nbsp; Except that&nbsp;in Houston they had about fifthy engineers&nbsp;and tech guys who could control a rocket flying 24,500 miles per hour, whereas I'm&nbsp;one of those clueless people (when it comes to tech, as opposed to my own&nbsp;bodily propulsion system)&nbsp;who never quite learned how to operate a VCR before&nbsp;it became obsolete, and who&nbsp;now wonders what the heck to do with all those useless cassete tapes in the TV cabinet.&nbsp; There, in the NPR studio in front of me, were five very large computer screens and&nbsp;seven keyboards plus a&nbsp;giant eighth keyboard the size of a surfboard, with about a thousand keys,&nbsp;flanked by&nbsp;a bank of instrument panels with enough blinking lights and controls&nbsp;to fly a fleet of starships to Pluto.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What had caught Bill Littlefield's interest, I think, was the admittedly far-out theory I discuss in the book, that there is a critical link between the kinds of endurance, patience, and persistence that long-distance runners learn to practice on wilderness trails, and the kinds of priorities that scientists tell us human civilization as a whole will have to adopt if we are to have any real hope for a sustainable future.&nbsp; In short, training for the long run--literally--can provide key insights to our own long-run future as a civilization.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Littlefield also knew I wasn't just an over-enthusiastic marathon or half-marathon junkie espousing an idea that was just a little too much of a stretch.&nbsp; In addition to having run long-distance races for over 55 years, I'd made my living as an editorial director for the Worldwatch Institute--publisher of the annual <em>State of the World</em>, which tracks global trends in such areas as human population, global warming, human food supply, major epidemics, and environmental decline.&nbsp; I'd done editing for some of the world's leading environmental and climate scientists.&nbsp; In my book, as I told the story of an iconic 50-mile race I had run a few weeks after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon (one of my rivals in the race, Frank Probst, had been the closest survivor to witness the Pentagon crash), I offered some provocative speculations on just what that link between individual endurance and societal sustainability entails.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Along with the broadcast, Littlefield posted a review on the host station's website, and my impression was that he "gets it" in a way that not all readers do.&nbsp; (A few of the reader comments on Amazon have been like "Hey, I thought this book was going to tell me how to improve my marathon time.&nbsp; What's all that other stuff?"&nbsp;But if you happen to look at the book's page on Amazon, also note the comments by Bill Rodgers, Kathrine Switzer, Michael Wardian, Naomi Benaron, Marshall Ulrich, and others, along with the most recent half-dozen reader reviews at the bottom!).&nbsp; Here's a link to Bill Littlefield's review: <a href="http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2013/02/09/the-longest-race">http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2013/02/09/the-longest-race</a>.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One reason I wanted to be fairly candid about my techno-cluelessness about things like VCRs or radio broadcast equipment (or smart phone apps, or Garmins, or any of the other electronic&nbsp;stuff that has taken over for our bodies and brains) is that I wan't to establish some credibility when it comes to making a candid observation about my strengths, as well as my weaknesses.&nbsp; There is one strength in particular (beyond a talent for running), which I'll discuss in my next post--an ability that has a strong bering on the validity of the theory of individual endurance and civilizational survival.&nbsp; Look for it in the next couple if days.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-longest-race-featured-on-npr.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-1144417598396736427Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:16:00 +00002013-01-16T14:24:12.350-08:00Lance Armstrong, Artificial Organs, and the Big-Brother Toilet: What Do They Have in Common?<h3>Three Things That Really Piss Me Off:</h3><br /><strong>1.&nbsp; Lance Armstrong.&nbsp;</strong> I'm a competitive endurance athlete, ran my first long-distance race before Lance Armstrong was born, and have never run for money or fame.&nbsp; And no, I'm&nbsp; not envious of Armstrong's money or fame, nor was I envious even when it was all golden, before it turned to rot.&nbsp; The thing is, long-distance running and other endurance sports are not even remotely like pro football, baseball, basketball, etc., which bring obscene amounts of income to their stars--many of whom never developed their social skills or education beyond early adolescence and are too often in the news because&nbsp;they've been involved in beatings, burgleries, shootings,&nbsp;or other crimes (note that the <em>Huffington Post</em> has an entire news section titled "Sports Crime."&nbsp; It's hard for me to imagine that long-distance runners might someday get sullied by such things--though with the huge cash prizes awarded in major marathons now, I fear the day might not be far off.&nbsp; Personally, I run for the pleasure of running and for the benefits of great health and fitness it brings--which, incidentally, I wouldn't trade for all the money ever banked by any pro athlete or hedge-fund manager or other fat cat you could name.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;But I'm also aware that beyond what endurance running has meant to me personally, it has brought something critically valuable to our troubled society at large.&nbsp; Long-distance running--especially trail running--has brought&nbsp;millions of us a greater sense of connection with the natural world that sustains us and that we depend on foor every breath and step we take.&nbsp; It takes courage and honesty for an athlete to recognize that those assets are worth infinitely more than personal glory or wealth.&nbsp; That's a truth that growing numbers of us have embraced, in party because it's a truth that may be critical to the survival of civilization itself.&nbsp; And when the&nbsp; best-known endurance athlete in the world betrays that truth, it's a tragedy not only for him, but for all of us.&nbsp; Lance Armstrong, like Barry Bonds, was a kind of Judas.&nbsp; He really pisses me off.<br /><br /><strong>2.&nbsp; Wilderness visitors loaded with equipment.</strong>&nbsp; It started with hiking and camping, and has since moved to trail running and ultrarunning.&nbsp; When I was young and maybe a little too innocent, I joined the Boy Scouts, which in those days seemed an admirable means by which kids could learn about nature.&nbsp; We had fun going on camping trips, cooking dinner over a campfire with a cook kit the size of a cereal bowl, and sleeping in a pup tent you could fold up and carry in your backpack.&nbsp; The other stuff you had in your pack included a canteen of water and a small spade for digging a latrine.&nbsp; Decades later, I learned that people were going camping with 30-foot motor homes, fully equipped kitchens, chaise-lounges, and TVs.&nbsp; In Southern California, guys were driving out to the desert to race&nbsp;400-horsepower&nbsp;vehicles with monster tires, wrecking the landscape.&nbsp; And still later, I noticed that many of my fellow endurance runners were carrying more and more high-tech aids to navigation and performance: GPS, camel backs, fuel belts, cooling hats, hand bottles, gel paks, computerized running shoes, vented jackets,&nbsp;super sleeves, thermal gloves, and so on.&nbsp; OK, if you're running in a place where you'd be arrested for running naked, or if you're going more than 10 miles on an extremely hot or extremely cold day, some of this stuff is very useful.&nbsp; But where do you draw the line?&nbsp; Or, more to the point, are you ever curious about whether a line <em>should</em> be drawn?&nbsp; Or to turn that question upside-down, if you currently carry a lot of equipment to enhance performance by cooling, warming, hydrating, fueling, pain-killing, and replenishing electrolytes, what's wrong with enhancing performance by doing what Lance Armstrong did?&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There was a time, a few decades ago, when a&nbsp;fundamental part of endurance sports was teaching your body how to increase its adaptability to thirst, fatigue, heat, etc., by developing greater energy efficiency and more astute awareness of your physiological and environmental conditions as you go.&nbsp; But who needs optimal energy conservation when you can have replenishment as often as you want?&nbsp; (Hint: If paleolithic humans had had&nbsp;readily available&nbsp;replenishment of food and water every half-hour, our species would never have developed the endurance, patience, and ability to envision and adapt that enabled us to build civilization, and none of us would&nbsp;exist today.)&nbsp; The unchallenged, never-questioned trend toward ever greater dependence on technological aids to do what the body can do amazingly well on its own--if well trained and attuned--is dangerous, because that dependence increasingly disconnects us from our own nature.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Someday, I'd like to see the announcement&nbsp;of an endurance race in which the quantities of water and fuel&nbsp;we&nbsp;can consume during the competition, as well as the kinds and capacities of all of any equipment&nbsp;we wish to use, are as strictly limited as are the kinds of drugs we're allowed.&nbsp; If a "minimalist" approach to endurance sport makes any sense at all, it can't be just with your shoes but with all that other stuff&nbsp;some runners&nbsp;now carry as if they're heading to Afraica to shoot lions and tigers on a rich-man's safari.&nbsp; The realization that large numbers of my fellow Americans,&nbsp;even including a growing cohort of endurance athletes,&nbsp;still embrace a safari attitude toward wilderness pisses me off.<br /><br /><strong>3.&nbsp; The Big-Brother-Is-Watching-You Toilet.</strong>&nbsp; Somewhere, a few years ago, I read about a new high-tech toilet developed by a Japanese company, which can save you a lot of the inconvenience of such disagreeable tasks as doing stool tests or being lectured by a doctor about your bad dietary habits.&nbsp; Or, if your doctor is ignorant of nutrition himself (as many doctors clearly are), it's a toilet that at least might alert you to a problem that would otherwise be overlooked.&nbsp; You don't want your underside to be overlooked, do you?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This toilet, if I recall, will automatically collect small samples of your poop, analyze them for various diseases, drug residues, or dietary deficiencies or excesses, and automatically report them via direct electronic links to the appropriate authorities.&nbsp; The purported use is for getting data quickly and efficiently from your bowels to the local Health officials, who&nbsp;will then be alerted if you are carrying a serious disease even before you know it yourself.&nbsp; But you can also see the other obvious uses for this toilet: Any residue of illicit drugs could be automatically reported to the police or DEA (Lance Armstrong should have had one of these years ago), and--if you're a celebrity--any indication of pregnancy could be passed on (for a price) to&nbsp;reporters who know the right people at the Health Department or other agencies.&nbsp; And if the model of toilet you have is equipped with a camera, personnel at these agencies might make a nice income on the side by selling photos of your butt.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When I read about this toilet, I found it both hilarious and appalling.&nbsp; When I poop or pee, I'd prefer not to have anyone watching.&nbsp; OK, if I'm running an ultra and have to stop and step into the woods a few yards, I don't mind if other runners see me as they go by.&nbsp; But close examination should be for me, and only me, to do or request a lab to do.&nbsp; The idea of having every poop or pee intercepted, examined, and evaluated for possible further action by the government?&nbsp; It's part of that same trend that's bringing us police-department drones looking in our windows or&nbsp; CIA analysts perusing our phone calls.&nbsp; That really pisses me off.<br /><br /><strong>OK, so how are all these things connected?</strong>&nbsp; And what about that other item in my catchy title, "Artificial Organs"?&nbsp; Well, I need to clarify something important: I'm not a Luddite, one of those people who hate technology.&nbsp; Technology is not&nbsp;always bad.&nbsp; (Do I really even need to say that?)&nbsp; But too many people, especially Americans and Japanese, regard it as always good.&nbsp; Virtually every new technology generates excitement in the media and among investors and consumers, and rarely do we have any concern about unintended consequences.&nbsp; We are enticed by the short-term satisfactions (the newest Apple or Samsung devices, etc.) while the long-term consequences of what were once promising technologies (coal-generated electricity, nuclear fission, DDT) fade from our awareness.&nbsp;Who even&nbsp;remembers&nbsp;Hiroshima, Chernobyl, or Love Canal?&nbsp; And who really worries about obesity, diabetes, or global warming?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For a more hidden example of a seeminly promising technology that has yet to reveal its fangs, who&nbsp;isn't glad for the biotech research that's beginning to produce artificial organs to replace diseased or injured ones?&nbsp; Isn't that good?&nbsp; Well, of course.&nbsp; But then, we don't think much at all about the long-term imnplications of a technology that could someday be used by a&nbsp;neo-Nazi government or organization not to&nbsp;help the ill or injured, but to build a superior breed of human.&nbsp; The technology that builds&nbsp;replacement livers and limbs could also be used to pioduce tall, blond, blue-eyed, beautiful, high-IQ children for the 1-percent of the population rich enough to have their genes engineered to order. Does anyone remember Hitler?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What artificial organs, the&nbsp;big-brother toilet, and Lance Armstrong's&nbsp;chemical joy-ride&nbsp;all have in common is that all are manifestations of the&nbsp;mad rush&nbsp;of our civilization to&nbsp;allow&nbsp;our most fundamental human capacities, including our intelligence and wisdom,&nbsp;be replaced by mindless technology.&nbsp; We turn our legs over to cars; we replace the mental mapping capacity of our hippocampuses&nbsp;with our GPS; we alleviate the stresses of hard work (whether at the desk or on a bicycle) by handing the burden of that work over to stimulants, painkillers, steroids, synthetic hormones, and narcotics.&nbsp; The trouble is, unlike in our highly evolved bodies and brains, which have had 60,000 years to work out the bugs, these new technologies are&nbsp;not coordinated with each other, and have no conscience.&nbsp; And the fact that we are so easily seduced by them really scares me.<br /><br /><strong>If these themes are of interest, I hope you'll&nbsp;check out&nbsp;my book <em>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance.</em>&nbsp; It's had&nbsp;great reviews&nbsp;from Bill Rodgers, Jacqueline Hansen, Michael Wardian, and editors at <em>Runners World</em>, <em>Running Times</em>, and <em>Ultrarunner</em>, among others.&nbsp; Available at Amazon and in bookstores.</strong>http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2013/01/lance-armstrong-artificial-organs-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-6918178672822444458Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:45:00 +00002012-10-08T10:45:08.655-07:00"The Longest Race" is Out!<em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</em>My book&nbsp;has been&nbsp;printed and released at last! (as of October 9).&nbsp; The pre-publication reviews have been amazing--as have the comments both from leading endurance athletes and from leading environmental activists concerned about the future of the planet we depend on for every step and breath we take.<br /><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</em>I want to&nbsp;quote just a few of the reviewers' comments, and then share&nbsp;a reflection (or warning, if you will) of my own.<br /><br /><strong><u>From the Reviews</u></strong>&nbsp;of <em>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance</em>:<br /><br />"Revealing, savvy, and fast-paced, Ayres's eloquent book on marathon running is a master class on the priceless life lessons of enduring and conquering obstacles to victory."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Publishers Weekly</strong></em><br /><br />"The book is well structured, and the conversation is thought provoking, planting questions and ideas that readers will ruminate on long after the last page is turned.&nbsp; Ayres's narrative skill makes this book stand out from other accounts of ultramarathons and is sure to appeal to both runners and nonrunners alike."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Booklist</strong></em><br /><br />"A leading environmental activist and ultramarathoner uses the 2001 JFK 50 Mile as a staging ground for his reflections on running, aging, and saving the planet . . . . Ayres admits he is addicted to running, but its importance for&nbsp; him goes beyond the physical -- a race of that length is a 'rutual of survival' . . . The author's broad-ranging interests and accumulated wisdom will appeal to a wide readership, not just runners and environmentalists."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Kirkus Reviews</strong></em><br /><br /><u><strong>From Endurance Athletes</strong>:</u><br /><br />"<em>The Longest Race</em> is a fascinating, compelling, and far-reaching read."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Amby Burfoot</strong></em>, <em>Runners World</em> editor-at-large, and winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon<br /><br />"An epic story of how important our fitness as individuals&nbsp;may be to the long-run sustainability of our national and global society."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Jacqueline Hansen</strong></em>, first woman to run a sub-2:40 marathon, and two-time marathon<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; world record holder<br /><br />"Ayres is a legend who shares his many provocative insights and lessons in an informative yet enjoyable way."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Dean Karnazes,</strong></em> <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>Ultramarathon Man</em><br /><em></em><br />"I have been reading Ed Ayres's insightful thoughts on running and life since I began serious training in the 1970s.&nbsp; We can all benefit greatly from Ed's wisdom.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Joe Friel</strong></em>, elite endurance athlete, coach, and author of <em>The Triathlete's Training Bible</em><br /><br />"In this compelling read, visionary Ed Ayres takes us on a run that may save our nanosecond lives . . . and our planet."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Kathrine Switzer</strong></em>, winner of the 1974 New York Marathon<br /><br />"This book reminds us that our strength and vitality can never be separated from the health of the&nbsp;earth we run on, and whose air we breathe."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Bill Rodgers</strong></em>, four-time New York Marathon winner and four-time Boston Marathon winner<br /><br />"Ed deftly weaves together a lifetime's experiences and observations . . . . Each topic alone would have made a good book.&nbsp; Together they yield a great one, richly detailed and finely written."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Joe Henderson</strong></em>, former editor of <em>Runners World</em><br /><br />"Ed Ayres has a talent for drawing the reader into his adventure.&nbsp; Enjoy the journey; it is a fun one."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em><strong>Michael Wardian</strong></em>, World Ultrarunner of the Year&nbsp;for 2011<br /><br /><strong><u>From Me (and From the Heart):</u></strong><br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>The Longest Race</em>&nbsp;isn't just a feel-good story, although some of the reviewers say they've been quite entertained.&nbsp; It's also something of a feel-<em>alarmed</em> story, so be forewarned!&nbsp; I feel a little like one of those movie-rating czars who warn parents that "the following contains sexually explicit or violent scenes . . . ."&nbsp; But in the case of <em>The Longest Race</em>, it's not naked bodies, etc., that may be hard to&nbsp;watch with the kids around&nbsp;(near-naked bodies go with the territory for us runners), but a form of impending violence that makes action movies look tame.&nbsp; I'm referring to the violence our "sprint culture" is doing to the planet we depend on for every step and every breath we take (see Bill Rodgers' comment above).&nbsp; If you can take a deep,slow breath and not be in denial about that, this book can take you on a memorable journey.&nbsp; I can promise that it will be unlike any other book about running you've ever read.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>The Longest Race</em> should be in bookstores now (the week of October 9-14), and is also available at all the online bookstores: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Longest-Race-Ultramarathon-Endurance/dp/1615190635">http://www.amazon.com/The-Longest-Race-Ultramarathon-Endurance/dp/1615190635</a>.&nbsp; <br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-longest-race-is-out.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-971230885973323331Mon, 17 Sep 2012 01:24:00 +00002012-09-16T18:24:15.407-07:00100 Quotes on Running and Human Endurance&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For fun, but also for inspiration and enlightenment, I decided to put together a collection of 100 quotes about that most fundamental activity of our species, <em>the human race</em>.&nbsp; The quotes I found range from whimsical to profound--sometimes in the same breath (see Dr. Suess). And I was especially fascinated by how universally evocative running seems to be not just to those of us who run for sport, but to philosphers, scientists, and even U.S. presidents (Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, and&nbsp;Jimmy Carter), as well as to some of the giants of literature and the arts (Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Joyce Carol Oates). And of course, let's not leave out actual runners, from Clarence DeMar to Kathrine Switzer to the guy who may have&nbsp;written more about running than anyone else on our crowded planet, Joe Henderson. I hope you won't mind that I'm also including a scattering of quick takes from my book <em>The Longest Race</em>, which will be out on October 9. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, here goes:<br /><br />1.&nbsp; "Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;that the final victory comes."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --The Buddha<br /><br />2.&nbsp; "Men ran after and ate horses for four hundred thousand years.&nbsp; The outcome is<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;more than a love of horse flesh; it is a runner's body."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Anthropologist Paul Shepard<br /><br />3.&nbsp;&nbsp; "There are as many reasons for running as there are days in a year.... But mostly<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;I run because I am an animal and a child."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Dr. George Sheehan<br /><br />4.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Joyce Carol Oates<br /><br />5.&nbsp;&nbsp; "If you can fill the unforgiving minute<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With sixty seconds worth of distance run--<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Yours is the Earth..."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />6.&nbsp; &nbsp;"I got plenty of cautions that one or two of these marathons was all a man<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;should do in a lifetime."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Clarence DeMar, in 1911, before the first of the seven<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Boston Marathons he won, and the&nbsp;65 he ran overall.<br /><br />7.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Running has substantiall shaped human evolution.&nbsp; Running made us human."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Evolutionary biologist Dennis Bramble of the University of Utah<br /><br />8,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "What's true for us as individual humans is true for the civilization we create: <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a sprint culture, seeking ever greater speed and power in all things cannot endure."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--from <em>The Longest Run: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon,</em><br /><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp; the Case for </em><em>Human Endurance</em> (October 2012)<br /><br />9.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I'm 84 years old. Don't let the altar-boy face fool you."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Johnny Kelly, aftger the finish of his 61st Boston Marathon<br /><br />10.&nbsp;&nbsp; "There are clubs you can't belong to, neighborhoods you can't live in, schools<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;you can't get into,&nbsp;but the roads are always open."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Nike advertisement<br /><br />11.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The best long-distance runners eat raw meant, run naked, and sleep in the snow."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Alaska Airlines advertisement referring to sled dogs, as cited by run100s.com<br /><br />12.&nbsp;&nbsp; "As a boy, I was about the slkowest moving youngster in school."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Seven-time Boston Marathon winner Clarence DeMar<br /><br />13.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Happiness is pushing your limits and watching them back down."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --New Balance advertisement<br /><br />14.&nbsp;&nbsp; "We humans...don't just sense what's happening in our bodies through<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;the mediation of our&nbsp;consciousness up top in the ivory towers of our heads, <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but through our feet."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />15.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Why couldn't Pheidippides have died at 20 miles?"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Frank Shorter, 1970, two years before he won the Olympic marathon<br /><br />16.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Sport, which&nbsp;mimics the language and emotional intensity of war but eliminates<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;the fatal&nbsp;destruction, may be a form of redemption."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><em></em><br />17. &nbsp;&nbsp; “They say a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;and pats you on top of the head. But I say a good love is one that casts you<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;into the wind, sets you ablaze,&nbsp;makes you burn through the skies and ignite<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you&nbsp;loose like a wildfire and you<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;can't stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;I say that's a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it!”&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--C. Joybell C.<br /><br />18.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "A city that outdistances man's walking powers is a trap for man."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Arnold Toynbee<br /><br />19.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "It might be a paradox that would only irritate an old-school coach, but I knew<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;well that I would run my best by hoping that everyone else ran <em>their</em> best."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />20.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Men are born human.&nbsp; What they must learn is to be an animal.&nbsp; If they learn<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;otherwise it may kill them, and kill life on the planet."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Anthropologist Paul Shepard<br /><br />21.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Ralph Waldo Emerson<br /><br />22.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Early humans actually ran with lower energy efficiency than the animals they chased--yet<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;prevailed."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em>, citing University of Utah biologist David Carrier<br /><br />23.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Since I was forty and definitely slipping, I have won seven full marathons,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;got second six&nbsp;times, and third four times.... I'm wondering what I can do<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;after I'm fifty."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Clarence DeMar<br /><br />24.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The feature that differentiates hominids from other primates is not large brain<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;size, but the set of characteristics associated with erect bipedal posture and<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;a striding gait."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Biologist David Carrier<br /><br />25.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Fatigue is not an enemy.... In fact, it's quite friendly and only wants you to be<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;more comfortable. &nbsp;It wants you to stop and lie down, for God's sake...."&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />26.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --William Barclay<br /><br />27.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Stone-age humans and their predecessors didn't have smart phones, but they<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;were smart on their feet, far longer than post-industrial people have been."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />28.&nbsp;&nbsp; "We can't reach old age by another man's road."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Mark Twain<br /><br />29.&nbsp; &nbsp;"The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Leonardo da Vinci<br /><br />30.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Now bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"<br /><br />31.&nbsp;&nbsp; "You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;the toughest&nbsp;opponent of all is the one inside your head."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Joe Henderson<br /><br />32.&nbsp;&nbsp; "In training (as opposed to racing) you don't want to let yourself run out of fuel totally,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but you do need to make yourself adapt to running farther with less."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />33.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Without patience, you will never conquer endurance."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Yiannis Kouros, holder of multiple world ultra records, as quoted in<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;TheTrailJogger<br /><br />34.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Man is a distance runner as a consequence of hundreds of thousands of years<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;of chasing antelopes, horses, elephants, wild cattle, and deer."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Paul Shepard<br /><br />35.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Paradoxically, ultrarunhners have (and need to have) less body fat than<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;most other people--yet the little we hve is of great value.&nbsp; Fat is<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;the ultrarunner's secret friend."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />36.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Come what may,&nbsp;bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Virgil<br /><br />37.&nbsp;&nbsp; "No matter how lean you might be, unless you are actually starving, you will<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;have enough fat to go for days."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />38.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Heroism is endurance for one moment more."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --George F. Kennan<br /><br />39.&nbsp;&nbsp; "A secret of Superbowl quarterbacks and long-distance runners alike: to go faster, <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Slow the game."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />40.&nbsp;&nbsp; "America may yet learn to endure, not from its pundits and politicians, but from its<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; endurance athletes."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />41.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;is body without mind."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Thomas Jefferson<br /><br />42.&nbsp;&nbsp; "There is only one cardinal sin: impatience.&nbsp; Because of impatience we were driven out<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; of Paradise.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--W. H. Auden<br /><br />43.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The human cardiovascular system evolved as part of the physiology of <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [prehistoric] hunters, who ran for their lives."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Paul Shepard<br /><br />44.&nbsp;&nbsp; "We had seen God in his splendour.... We had reached the naked soul of man."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Ernest Shackleton, as quoted at Brainyquote.com<br /><br />45.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Some of the events in the Olympics are about as athletic as a hotdog-eating&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; contest.&nbsp; Yet,&nbsp;there's no 100k run!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--The world's ultrarunners<br /><br />46.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; we refuse to believe it."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Isaac Asimov<br /><br />47.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Pushing your body past what you thought it was capable of is easy;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;the hard part is pushing&nbsp;yourself even further"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Rex Pearce, as quoted by a blogger I've lost track of, for which I apologize.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Blog on!<br /><br />48.&nbsp;&nbsp; "A lot of animals evolved through blind adaptations.&nbsp; We didn't.&nbsp; When we<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;felt the breeze pass across our&nbsp; nostrils and chests, we were already envisioning<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;what awaited us far ahead on the trail or over the horizon."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />49.&nbsp;&nbsp; "If you fall, then you crawl.&nbsp; What is it about finishing?"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Chapter subtitle from <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />50.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Here are some who like to run. They run for fun in the hot, hot sun."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Dr. Suess, quoted by @We_Run<br /><br />51.&nbsp;&nbsp; "When men do not run they are likely to die prematurely from dysfunction of the heart<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;and vascular systems or from disabling chronic disease."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Anthropologist Paul Shepard<br /><br />52.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"The most useful thing for a competitive runner to know about fatigue is that it is <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;fundamental to nature.&nbsp; <em>Fatigue is not an enemy</em>, and if you fight it as if it were, you<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; squander what little energy you still have."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />53.&nbsp;&nbsp; "We think running is one of the most transforming events in human history."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Dennis Bramble, professor emeritus in the biology department of the<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;University of Utah, commenting on how humans evolved as long-<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; distance-running "persistence hunters"<br /><br />54.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Some people never get their feet on the ground,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; They're either sitting in a chair or theyre laying down...."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Folk singer Phil Ochs, in his song "50-Mile Hike"<br /><br />55.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in...removing tension<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and allowing released from whatever other cares the day may bring."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --President Jimmy Carter, after recovering from his collapse in a Maryland road race<br /><br />56.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The body of a runner, like the engine of a car, has to get rid of waste heat as rapidly as<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;it's generated, or else fail."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />57.&nbsp; &nbsp;"I couldn't help but note that the notion of spending a bunch of money on something<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;'minimalist' was more than a touch ironic."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Stacey Gordon<br /><br />58.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The now-too-neglected secret, I knew, was that the body's output, like industry's, was <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;more strongly determined by energy efficiency than by supply."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />59.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Sweat cleanses from the inside.&nbsp; It comes from a place showers will never reach."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Dr. George Sheehan<br /><br />60.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Ultrarunning won't save the world, but it's a practice of the kinds of skills and<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;outlooks&nbsp;that could ultimately help change the world's course and will almost<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;certainly change yours."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --"Notes for an Aspiring Ultrarunner," an appendix to <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />61.&nbsp;&nbsp; "You can hurt more than you ever thought possible, then continue until<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;you discover that&nbsp;hurting isn't that big a deal."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Seven-time Western States 100-Mile winner Scott Jurek, quoted <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; by Can't Stop Endurance<br /><br />62.&nbsp;&nbsp; "In almost anything worthwhile, and especially ultrarunning, rushing to achieve success<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; is a big mistake."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--"Notes for an Aspiring Ultrarunner," an appendix to <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />63.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Long-distance running is not separate from the rest of life.&nbsp; It will affect<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;your overall vitality, endurance, and patience, and may also affect your <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; relationships and worldview.&nbsp; You will very likely becomed less complacent, <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; more questioning, more adventurous, and more&nbsp;reconnected with your youth."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />64.&nbsp; &nbsp;"If we fail to encourage physical development and prowess, we will<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;undermine our capcity for thought, for work, and for use of those skills vital<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;to an expanding and complex America."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --John F. Kennedy<br /><br />65.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Is this level of athletic competition the ultimate distraction from real life?&nbsp; Or <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; is it a form&nbsp;of prayer?"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--Norah Vincent, on the Olympics, submitted by Mark Pynt<br /><br />66.&nbsp;&nbsp; "I suppose if you could have only one thing, it would be that--energy.&nbsp; Without it, you<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; haven't got a thing."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --John F. Kennedy<br /><br />67&nbsp; &nbsp;"The Greeks understood that mind and body must develop in harmonious proportion to<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; produce a creative intelligence."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--John F. Kennedy<br /><br />68.&nbsp;&nbsp; "I always loved running.... It was something you could do by yourself and under your<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; own power."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Jesse Owens<br /><br />69.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"There's no fountain of youth, and there's no anti-aging pill.&nbsp; But there is a secret strategy<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;that&nbsp;does work to a remarkable degree, and is free: continuing to learn with an open<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;mind and&nbsp;unobstructed heart."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />70.&nbsp; &nbsp;"For a long-distance runner, the end of the race is when you pause for rest before<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;beginning&nbsp;a long and patient preparation for the next race and that sense of rebirth<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;it will bring."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;--<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />71.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Thomas Jefferson<br /><br />72.&nbsp;&nbsp; "If 95 percent of the runner's success is achieved before he or she even goes<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;to the starting line, then 99.9 percent is done before the finish line is even<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;within sight."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><em></em><br />73.&nbsp;&nbsp; "It's ironic that Olympic spectators will never have seen Yiannis Kouros, the greatest <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Greek athlete since Pheidippides"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Ed Ayres, during the London Olympics in 2012<br /><br />74.&nbsp;&nbsp; "What are my running shoes for?&nbsp; The journey from barefoot hunter to "boots<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;on the ground" to where I am now"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Chapter subtitle in <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />75.&nbsp;&nbsp; "If you want to win something, run 100 meters.&nbsp; IF you want to experience something,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; run a marathon."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Emil Zatopek, winner of four Olympic gold medals<br /><br />76.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Learning from Quarterbacks: the Slower-is-faster Phenomenon"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Chapter subtitle in <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><em>&nbsp;</em><br />77.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="mailto:--@TeamRunner4Life">--TeamRunner4Life</a><br /><br />78.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like the muscles of the body."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Lynn Jennings<br /><br />79.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other...but to be <em>with</em> each other."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Christopher McDougall<br /><br />80.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The Blessing and Curse of Competition: Why Vince Lombardi Was Dead Wrong"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Chapter subtitle in <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><em></em><br />81.<em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</em>"Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;life to the fullest."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Haruki Murakami<br /><br />82.&nbsp;&nbsp; "I'm a minimalist.&nbsp; I'd rather run naked than over-clothed and over-equipped.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--EA<br /><br />83.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I'm a minimalist.&nbsp; I don't want a GPS; I want to develop the ancient skill of mental<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; mapping.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --EA<br /><br />84.&nbsp;&nbsp; "May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; amazing view."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Edward Abbey<br /><br />85.&nbsp;&nbsp; "We who run...are different from those who merely study us.&nbsp; We are out there<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;experiencing&nbsp;what they are trying to put into words."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Dr. George Sheehan<br /><br />86.&nbsp;&nbsp; "That's the beauty of this great sport&nbsp;(track), though--it's such a fine line between success<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;or not, which makes the sweet moments that much more worth savoring."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Nick Willis, U.S. 1500-meter Olympian, 2012<br /><br />87.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"In the year 2025m, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Stephen King, in <em>The Running Man</em><br /><br />88.&nbsp;&nbsp; "The will to win means nothing if you haven't the will to prepare."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Juma Ikanga, 1989 New York Marathon winner<br /><br />89.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Every man dies, but not every man really lives."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --William Wallace, as played by Mel Gibson in "Braveheart"<br /><br />90.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Becoming a Persistence Hunter: the Long Day of Tracking, the Grateful Kill,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Celebration"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Chapter subtitle in <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />91.&nbsp;&nbsp; "This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;foundation for all of the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself. But<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; it is a knowledge which today, in America, we are in danger of forgetting."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--John F. Kennedy, 1960<br /><br />92.&nbsp;&nbsp; "If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Kathrine Switzer, first woman to run the Boston Marathon<br /><br />93.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Running is the greatest meaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Oprah Winfrey<br /><br />94.&nbsp;&nbsp; "You have brains in your head.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You have fee in your shoes.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You can Steer yourself any<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Direction you choose!"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Dr. Suess<br /><br />95.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I had as many doubts as anyone else.&nbsp; Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Alberto Salazar<br /><br />96.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --William Barclay<br /><br />97.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Listen to your body.&nbsp; Do not be a blind and deaf tenant."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Dr. George Sheehan<br /><br />98.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Years ago, women sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and discussing life.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Now they discuss&nbsp;the same topics while they run."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --Joan Benoit, first winner of the women's Olympic marathon<br /><br />99.&nbsp;&nbsp; "These two looked light on their feet, relaxed, conversing amiably--just a couple of<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; young people enjoying the day, in a world that might have a future yet."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br />100.&nbsp;&nbsp; "Without fellow humans, there's no foot race.&nbsp; Without a healthy planet, there's no<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;human race."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --<em>The Longest Race</em>,&nbsp;out in October<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp; http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/09/100-quotes-on-running-and-human.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-4637281468969453641Fri, 24 Aug 2012 20:40:00 +00002012-08-24T13:40:29.196-07:00Dark Clouds Over the OlympicsDon KardongFrank ShorterGalen RuppMo FarahOlympic JingoismOlympic Silver LiningDark Clouds Over the Olympics . . . and Maybe a Silver Lining&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What?&nbsp; Dark clouds over all that giddiness in London--even to the point where stiff-upper-lip Brits were cheering their heads off?&nbsp; (And I don't mean&nbsp;in the manner of their former king Henry the Eighth!)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I know this is politically incorrect on both sides of the Atlantic, not to mention in China, Jamaica, and Ethiopia, but dark clouds there are.&nbsp; Since the mainstream media were far too lazy and impressionable to do serious reporting or even acknowledging that those clouds exist, I'd better explain myself.&nbsp; Before I get to a little bright silver, let me first discuss some very tarnished and sometimes-false gold.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When I was a kid, the Olympics were to me what the Holy Grail might have been to a Medieval knight.&nbsp; I was 13 when Roger Bannister ran the first 4-minute mile, and soon after that&nbsp;galvanizing event I was one of the 100 million people worldwide who listened to the radio broadcast of&nbsp;Bannister's&nbsp;epic duel with John Landy (the second sub-4 guy), in the British Empire Games of 1954 (see my article "Moments" in the September <em>Running Times</em> magazine).&nbsp; That was the year I began running myself, and the notion of going to the Olympics was for me like what the idea of playing for the Yankees or Brooklyn Dodgers might have been for some of my playmates in those halcyon days.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;In my coming-of-age imagination, going to the Olympics was the ultimate daydream.&nbsp; It was no doubt affected by the Olympic ideal, originating in the ancient Games of Athens, of the uncompromised amateur athlete.&nbsp;Those naked Greek runners did not have&nbsp;apparel endorsement contracts.&nbsp;In those years of my youth, long-distance running was under the aegis of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), and a runner could be banned for life if he accepted any sort of financial compensation. When I took a job as a high school teacher and cross-country coach in 1963, the school offered to pay me $300 for the coaching, but I asked them to please just increase my annual salary for the classroom teaching by that amount, and not pay me for the coaching, so I wouldn't be banned from running for the rest of my life!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Of course, this being America, it didn't take too long for that idea to be scuttled, and some guy named Bolt can now be paid&nbsp;more for 10 seconds of competition than the world's best long-distance runners of the 1950s or '60s were paid for a&nbsp;thousand hours&nbsp;of competition over their entire lives.&nbsp; But while this dream of a beautiful&nbsp;ideal still lingered, I at least won an AAU national-championship medal (bronze) and patch, which still occupy a place of honor on my bookshelf.&nbsp; (The AAU was a badly run organization, but I didn't really know&nbsp;how relatively OK it was&nbsp;until later, when it was succeeded by the Athletics Congress (TAC), which was even more hapless, and which was itself replaced by USA Track &amp; Field (USATF), which is little more than a money-processing buraucracy that as far as I can see does nothing for 99.9 percent of the country's track and long-distance runners, other than try to sell them stuff on its online store.)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Whatever the reasons for my youthful dreams about the Olympics, they were destined&nbsp;to be ruined not just by my own failure to qualify for the Olympic Trials (that's another story, for another day), but also by a series of commercial,&nbsp;geopolitical, and terrorist events that in my lifetime has turned the Olympics from an erstwhile Holy Grail to something more like the mortgage debacle of 2008, or Bernie Madoff's brobdingnagian heist.&nbsp; In brief, some of the dark clouds as they gathered:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>1968, Mexico City</strong>:&nbsp;As quickly suspected and later confirmed, East Germany, with a population about the size of today's Mexico City, doped its athletes with drugs--and wins 9 gold medals.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>1972, Berlin</strong>:&nbsp; Terrorists murder Israeli athletes in the Olympic village.&nbsp; This time, East German athletes win 20 drug-juiced golds.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>1976, Montreal</strong>: As U.S. athletes win individual events, American spectators shout <em>"We're Number</em> <em>One! We're Number One!"</em>&nbsp; I have to wonder how an athlete from a small country, who had performed just as well, feel about that.&nbsp; The U.S.&nbsp;spectators contribute nothing to the U.S. athletes' success (and largely ignore them for the four years between Games), but don't hesitate to claim national hegemony when an American wins.&nbsp; And oh yes, this time the East German's take <em>40 </em>golds.&nbsp; And the&nbsp;drug-doping&nbsp;business seems to have expanded to other events.&nbsp; The defending marathon champion Frank Shorter is handed a silver medal, when there is good reason to believe&nbsp;he'd actually won the gold.&nbsp; And Don Kardong, who finished a bittersweet fourth,&nbsp;seems to have been&nbsp;denied&nbsp;a rightly earned bronze.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>1980, Moscow:&nbsp;</strong> The United States government decides to boycott the Moscow Olympics, forbidding its citizens to participate--even though America is advertised as a "free country" and the Olympics are supposedly about individuals competing, not nation-states.&nbsp; And the reason for the boycott?&nbsp; The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, to fight bad guys there, and America does not condone invasions. &nbsp;Do I need to put an explanation point after that last sentence, or invoke that handy word "irony"?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>1984, Los Angeles</strong>: An eye foir an eye, the Soviet Union reciprocates with a boycott of its own. The people most hurt are the Soviets' own citizens. &nbsp;Sorry, Russian gymnasts: Your arch-enemy Hitler is long dead, but the soup Nazis of the world still rule: No medals for you!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; . . . And so on, through the years: the Games get even bigger, more costly, and more prized by national governments as trophies, the way the heads of mooses or bears might be prized by the owners of upscale&nbsp;hunting lodges.&nbsp; In much of the media, the Olympics become a "medals race," not unlike the "arms race" of the Cold War years.&nbsp; And as the Games become ever larger spectacles, corporate sponsorship and control (and, more to the point, profiteering) continues to expand.&nbsp; If I might invoke that handy word "irony" just one more time, what do you think of all those athletes of enviably lean and fit physique being paraded around by two of the world's largest junk-food traffickers?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>2012, city of Dickensian waifs who'd be very grateful for a bowl of watery soup, please</strong>: Nearly all of the vices are now at their zenith (except the terrorism, fended off by a massive army of soldiers and police, at English taxpayers' expense).&nbsp; The medals race again is rampant, with none of the sports reporters (who are&nbsp;not known for their thinking,&nbsp;in any case) ever questioning whether a nation has legs and lungs and can perform athletic feats.&nbsp; Nations and corporations don't have heartbeats and can't breathe, which may partly explain why they do so little to prevent&nbsp;air pollution.&nbsp; And by now, the "we're number-one" delusion has spread from the Americans to the British.&nbsp; The British singer Morrissey makes a well publicized objection to the "blustering jingoism" of his countryment.&nbsp; And the <em>Denver Post</em> writer Steve Lipshen writes, "This year's Games reflected the most stereotypical traits of Americans: jingoism, cockiness, and hubris, all presented by McDonalds and Coca-Cola."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;* *<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, after all that, how can there be any silver lining?&nbsp; I'll mention three moments out of the thousands spewed across the ether by NBC and the Internet, that lifted my spirits in spite of all that has gone so wrong with my youthful ideal.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.&nbsp; The last 10 seconds of the men's 10,000 meters: Gaylen Rupp catches up with the East African super-runners who've been outrunning American runners for Rupp's entire life, and passes them with a big smile on his face, to win the silver and come within a half-second of the gold . . .<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2.&nbsp; Rupp's training partner and friend, Mo Farah, turns his head the instant he crosses the line&nbsp;first, to see and celebrate his friend's having&nbsp;taken second.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3.&nbsp; And the last 30 seconds or so of the women's 10,000, in whichTirunesh Dibaba smoothly pulled away from her formidable rivals and sailed to the win with a big smile on her face, like a kid on a playground swing.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thesw three&nbsp;moments (among many, I'm sure) were not about competition between nations, but between individual humans at their best.&nbsp; Significantly, at least for me, Rupp and Farrah weren't teammates on one of the artificial, corporate- and government-funded "teams" that wore the uniforms of their countries (many of&nbsp;which maintain&nbsp;huge military arsentals to war against each other in less sporting ways).&nbsp; Rupp and Farah are citizens of different countries, but in training together became <em>real</em> teammates.&nbsp; The smiles on Rupp's and Dibaba's faces weren't manifestations of national or geopolitcal righteousness, or corporate success, but of the human spirit at its best.&nbsp; Contrary to a recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, a corporation is not a person!&nbsp; Neither corporations nor the governments they largely control have spirits; only the people who form them do.&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Supreme Court, in its blasphemic declaration that corporations have "personhood," reminds me of the old men of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who a few decades ago ruled out any Olympic running events for women longer than 1500 meters, in the belief that women can't safely run for longer than about five minutes.&nbsp; Maybe the troglodyte denizens of these institutions will eventually die off, but in the mean time I get a big kick out of seeing that despite all the corruption the gladiatorial&nbsp;spectacles&nbsp;thrust upon us every four years&nbsp;now embody, the real strength of the Olympics is alive and well in the some of the individual athletes. And I don't care what country they come from or who paid for their shoes.<br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/08/dark-clouds-over-olympics-and-maybe.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-6988617061351968111Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:42:00 +00002012-07-31T11:42:53.367-07:00Enduring for Life, Part 5: Keep Learning, or It's the End of the Road!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This fall's JFK 50-Mile run will mark the start of my 57th consecutive year of long-distance running competition, and while going to a big race is as exciting now as it ever has been for me, it's also an occasion for sober reflection.&nbsp; Most of the kids I ran with in high school or college, and even most of the hard-core runners I&nbsp;knew during the "golden age" of American road-racing in the 1980s, are no longer around.&nbsp; <em>Why</em>?&nbsp; Some had their knees go bad, decades ago,&nbsp;and had to put away their Waffle Trainers or Olympias.&nbsp; Others were just tired, or burned out.&nbsp; Some were sticken by illness.&nbsp; But after half a century of reading, reflection, and conversation with other runners, I have a strong impression that what too often happens is that as an athlete ages, training begins to feel like the ordeal of Sisyphus--that mythological figure who was condemned to be eternally rolling a large rock up a hill, with the rock&nbsp;eternally rolling back on him (or so I recall it).&nbsp; Or if you're not into Greek mythology, just think of the ordeal of Bill Murray in the movie "Groundhog Day." When things don't change, they can have a deadly impact on you--sometimes literally. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, suppose a 50-year-old runner doggedly repeats the workouts he did with some success at age 45, only now instead of getting better he gets inexorably slower, and the workouts get harder.&nbsp; Maybe he eventually thinks, "What's the poiint?"--and he stops.&nbsp;If you are worried about that happening to you, my&nbsp;suggestion is that whatever worked for you in the past <em>can't possibly</em> keep working if you regard it as a fixed formula.&nbsp; There's always something new to be learned. &nbsp;Part of what's meant by getting "wiser" as we grow older is recognizing that reality. &nbsp;Whether in science or in the art of living, we humans rarely if ever have final answers (except politicians, of course), and as long as we continue to have curiosity and interest in exploration and discovery, the pursuit will feel worthwhile.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As a guy who is now running ultramarathons in his 70s, I'm astonished at how much I have learned about running--and life--just in the past few weeks, that I didn't know as a dedicated runner in my&nbsp;teens, 20s, 30s, 40s,&nbsp;50s, or 60s!&nbsp; Our species evolved not just by exploring the earth's forests&nbsp;in which primates first evolved, but by&nbsp;adapting to new environments in an ever-changing world.&nbsp; In practical terms, one way to keep the learning fresh is to keep seeking new places to do training runs, to&nbsp;try races of different distances in different&nbsp;kinds of terrain or climate, and to keep reading the new discoveries about human endurance coming from the fields of evolutionary biology, anatomy, human ecology, biomechanics, neuroscience, nutrition, sports medicine, and the sociology of sport.&nbsp; Read some of those things and then experiment or play with them, and the running will be enjoyable for a long time to come.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What I've discovered, so far, is that there's no fountain of youth or anti-aging pill, but that there's a secret strategy that does work and is free: continuing to learn with an open mind and an unobstructed heart.<br /><br /><em>These themes are explored in the course of a dramatic narrative about an epic race that took place in the wake of the 9/11 attack on America, as recounted in the book <strong>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance</strong>, to be published October 9. The book now has a page on Amazon, where you can see advance comments about it from Bill Rodgers, Kathrine Switzer, Amby Burfoot, Jacqueline Hansen, Dean Karnazes, and others--and where if you wish you can pre-order a copy to be delivered immediately upon release.</em>&nbsp;http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/07/enduring-for-life-part-5-keep-learning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-105385087213657102Mon, 23 Jul 2012 00:19:00 +00002012-07-22T17:19:24.261-07:00Enduring for Life - Part 4: Take nutrition seriously, for life!<em>For a quick intro to this group of posts, look to the right and click on the first one, then come back to here.&nbsp;OK, I'm a techno-doofus and don't know how to properly design a website, but I can still run like the wind!&nbsp; (Or at least like a gentle breeze....)</em><br /><br /><strong>4.&nbsp; Take nutrition seriously, for life.</strong>&nbsp; I don't think many sports-nutrition experts would disagree with my belief that while race-day fueling is a big factor in an endurance athletic performance, it can't compensate for a poor diet over a lifetime.&nbsp; I've known of great athletes who seemed to thrive&nbsp;on Coke and fries&nbsp;in their 20s, but&nbsp;several decades&nbsp;later were long gone from the scene--some of them burned out, others overtaken by belly fat, and many&nbsp;brought down&nbsp;by cancer or other lifestyle diseases.&nbsp; A pervasive reason is that American life--and its omnipresence&nbsp;of&nbsp;fat-, sugar,- and salt-saturated junk&nbsp;food--is heaily influenced by quick-impression advertising and what I call "sprint culture." It's not just "fast food" that has afflicted our country with obesity and heart disease, but an expectation of quick satisfactions in all things.&nbsp; Fad diets come and go like fashions.&nbsp; But the best nutrition&nbsp;for humans developed over several million years of our evolution as nomadic hunter-gatherers.&nbsp; The diets most conducive to high fitness and health are those which most closely replicate what we ate in the wild, for hundreds of millennia--what we now call "natural," or minimally processed, foods.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When I was 13 years old, in 1954, I decided I wanted to be a long-distance runner, and&nbsp;toward that end I&nbsp;decided to give up all foods containing&nbsp;highly refined sugars, starches, hydrogenated fats such as Crisco or margarine, and chemical additives.&nbsp; That was also the year Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4 minute mile, and I was galvanized.&nbsp; I've stuck with that diet ever since, and am now in my 55th consecutive year of long-distance competition.&nbsp; Along the way, I've won four national age-group championships (at 50k and 50 miles), and I'm still going strong.&nbsp; This summer I'm planning to run two mountain-trail 50ks, then in November run the JFK 50-Mile--now in the 70-79 age division.&nbsp; I'm way, <em>way</em> slower than when I was a young man of 50, or a mere kid of 30 or 40, but the important thing is that I'm healthy and full of what JFK liked to call "vigah," and I think a big part of that is lifelong attention to good diet.&nbsp; Over a week or a month, the effects of good nutrition&nbsp; may be hardly noticeable, but over the decades they are cumulative, and by the time you reach old age they&nbsp;can make&nbsp;a world of difference.http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/07/enduring-for-life-part-4-take-nutrition.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-5982590364593343812Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:31:00 +00002012-07-19T09:31:09.080-07:00Enduring for Life: Will the Mojo Fade? - Part 3<em>To read the Intro to this 5-part series on athletic longevity, click on the title of the first installment, to the right.&nbsp; </em><br /><br /><strong>3.&nbsp; Practice Patience!</strong>&nbsp; The great ultrarunner Yiannis Kouros (arguably the most amazing ultrarunner the world has seen) has commented that without patience, you can't have endurance.&nbsp; "Practice patience" is one of those many platitudes that millions of people say they respect, but very few seriously observe.&nbsp; We live in a "sprint culture," and are poorly prepared for the long run.&nbsp; For an endurance athlete, though, learning the art of patience is as critical as doing the miles or eating the right foods.&nbsp; It's critical in both training <em>and</em> racing.&nbsp; Here's my thought on how it relates to athletic longevity:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As you grow older, it gets easier to learn patience--and more necessary.&nbsp; Youth is famously&nbsp;fraught with impatience and impulsiveness, and for the young that isn't necessarily bad.&nbsp; But experience brings new perceptions about time.&nbsp; In my forthcoming book <em>The Longest Race</em> (out in October)*, I have a chapter titled "Learning from Quarterbacks," which examines one of the most fascinating phenomena in all of sports--the concept of "slowing the game."&nbsp; Football is a game of rocket reflexes, and one of the most important skills of a successful football player is not just to be fast in his own movement, but to slow down his opponents' movement in his perception--to see them in slo-mo, so he can more astutely and accurately direct his play.&nbsp; As the sports journalist Roy S. Johnson has said, "Great athletes . . . say the game 'slows down' for them, particularly at critical moments.&nbsp; That's why a baseball player or tennis player can read the spin of a bseball or tennis ball when it looks like a blur to the rest of us . . . . The fastest way to your goal isn't always fast."&nbsp;After Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers led the Packers to their Super Bowl championship in 2011, for example, coach Mike Miller commented, "He is at the point in this game that the game has slowed down for him."&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And how does this apply to a slow-twitch&nbsp;sport like long-distance running or bicycle racing?&nbsp; Your need&nbsp;as an&nbsp;endurance athlete isn't so much to slow down a blur of motion <em>around</em> you as to slow down any sense of urgency or anxiety in your gut.&nbsp; Internal turbulence can be as disruptive and energy-sapping&nbsp;to a distance-runner's performance as chaoitic external forces like blitzing defensive&nbsp;linemen can be to a quarterback's.&nbsp;It's not just a matter of good pacing, but of finding the kind of inner calm that allows the highest possible level of both physical and emotional energy efficiency.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Part 4 follows in a few days . . .<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *The full title of the book is <em>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon,&nbsp;and the Case for Human Endurance</em>.&nbsp; It has had enthusiastic pre-publication endorsements from Bill Rodgers, Michael Wardian, Jacqueline Hansen and&nbsp;a score of other prominent endurance athletes, and will be released in October.&nbsp; It can also be pre-ordered now from Barnes &amp; Noble and other booksellers' online stores.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/07/enduring-for-life-will-mojo-fade-part-3.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-8474704143820781488Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:27:00 +00002012-07-09T14:27:14.250-07:00Enduring for Life: Will the Mojo Fade? --Part 2<em>To read the quick intro this "Enduring for Life" series, scroll down to the previous post.&nbsp; (I'm such a techno-doofus that my blog works like one of those dial-with-your-finger telephones we used to have, but at least, thank God, I can still run!)&nbsp; Now, to continue:</em><br /><br /><strong>2. Keep recovery time in synch with performance time.</strong><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With the passing years, as your body slows in running tempo, it also slows in recovery and regeneration time.&nbsp; A lot of athletes overlook this; they know they can't run or ride as fast as when they were in their 20s or 30s, but they still try to maintain the same seven-day-a-week training schedules they had then.&nbsp; I made that mistake for decades before I woke up to the fact that after a hard workout or race, my muscles and blood needed more time to bounce back than they did once.&nbsp; That posed a problem, because if I now needed--let's say--a third more regeneration time, it wasn't practical to just shift from working out every 24 hours to doing it every 32 hours; I'd be wrecking my normal sleep and work cycles.&nbsp; But I did find that a fairly productive solution was to simply take days off more often,.&nbsp; So, for example, I might run two consecutive days, take off one, then run three and take off one, then repeat that&nbsp;seven-day&nbsp;cycle for a while to see how running 5 of every 7 days worked for me.&nbsp; Total weekly mileage dropped, but amazingly, so did performance times!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That's a fairly simple observation, but the booming sciences of human performance suggest that "Slowing" is not just what happens to tempo and recovery time as you grow older. It's more complex, and multifarious, than that.&nbsp; Physiological slowing also plays a role in the performances of young people who have not yet reached their athletic peak.&nbsp; As a runner improves in cardiovascular efficiency, his&nbsp;resting heart rate slows.&nbsp; An average young adult migh have a heart rate around 75 bpm, but the pulse of a well-conditioned endurance runner, regardless of age, is likely to be much slower--often around 50 bpm or even lower.&nbsp;In effect, the heart is taking a longer rest between contractions in a runner than it does in the chest of a couch potato. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So, again (recalling the point of the previous post), slowing the recovery between exertions, whether in the hours between workouts or the one second between heart beats, is not a symptom of decline but a measure of efficiency.&nbsp; As we grow older, we have less time left to live. So, paradoxically, we can&nbsp;most appreciate the time we have left by taking more of it to do what we enjoy most.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/07/enduring-for-life-will-mojo-fade-part-2.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-8027932058208203378Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:24:00 +00002012-07-06T08:24:40.633-07:00Enduring for Life: Will the Mojo Fade?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Most endurance athletes get quite focused on how well they'll perform in the coming days, and the performances will be measured by clock, not calendar.&nbsp; Endurance records are written in minutes and hours, not years or decades.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But what if you perform well by those&nbsp;relentless clock&nbsp;standards in your 20s, 30s, and even 40s,&nbsp;only to&nbsp;burn out or have to give it up due to injury or illness&nbsp;by the time you're 50?&nbsp; That's what has happened to millions of men and women (including many I know personally), and it's heartbreaking.&nbsp; In a country where most people now live into their 80s or 90s, having to give up&nbsp;the sport you love&nbsp;for&nbsp;your last quarter&nbsp;of a century on this planet&nbsp;can be one of life's&nbsp;most ravaging&nbsp;disappointments.&nbsp; Yet, for many and maybe even most of us, that doesn't have to happen.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Over the years, I've discovered some of the secrets of endurance-sport longevity, and have put them to the ultimate test--my own ability to keep competing at a high level long after most people my age have had to hang up their shoes.&nbsp; Now in my seventh decade of competition (1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s...), I'm still going strong--and have high hopes of continuing for years to come--and I'd like to help others be able to do so too.&nbsp; This summer I'm running a couple of mountain-trail 50ks, and in November I'll be running in America's largest ultra, the JFK 50-Mile.&nbsp; And although the 1,500 entrants in the JFK (which was filled in May) are all experienced marathoners or ultrarunners, and most are 20 to 40 years younger, I have good reason to think I'll be able to keep pace with a majority of them.&nbsp; <em>How?</em><br /><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </em>In the next few posts, I want to share some of the secrets of athletic longevity I've learned.&nbsp; Here's the first:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>1.</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>Aging&nbsp;isn't the same as&nbsp;decline!</strong><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; At some point in your late 30s or early 40s, performance times for endurance events inevitably begin to slow, but it's important to understand that your middle-age performances are <em>not inferior</em> to those you achieved in your peak years.&nbsp; Thinking you've started to "lose it" is a spirit-killer, and is even&nbsp;biologically incorrect.&nbsp; Rather, look at it this way: An older athlete is a <em>different animal</em> than a younger one,&nbsp; The 50- or 60-year old is slower, but (if he's trained his mind as well as his body) is probably a wiser and&nbsp;more savvy&nbsp;survivor.&nbsp; Different animals can't be compared by the same measures.&nbsp; A bulldog can't run as fast as a greyhound, but that doesn't make it an <em>inferior</em> breed of dog--only a different one with different capabilities.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Before rushing on to the next observation, take a little time to meditate on this.&nbsp; I'll post #2 shortly.<br /><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </em>http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/07/enduring-for-life-will-mojo-fade.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-5376715402933880421Tue, 26 Jun 2012 23:44:00 +00002012-06-26T16:44:20.698-07:00The War on Science--and the Role Endurance Athletes Need to Play&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A lot of us long-distance runners regard our sport as a welcome escape from the stresses of life.&nbsp;&nbsp;We can feel free, independent, and unencumbered on the trail in a way&nbsp;we might not in&nbsp;our workplace&nbsp;or at home.&nbsp; Up on a mountain trail,&nbsp;we can often&nbsp;breathe cleaner air than&nbsp;we can elsewhere, and we&nbsp;might appreciate vistas that more sedentary people rarely see.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But to some degree, that appreciation we runners feel&nbsp;may be&nbsp;an illusion.&nbsp; In evolutionary time, it's an eyeblink of paradise, and it's disappearing fast.&nbsp; The air we breathe as runners is endangered by a growing burden of smoke from coal-burning power plants and heavy industries; the forested vistas we enjoy are increasingly endangered by wildfires and&nbsp;by&nbsp;rapidly spreading diseases&nbsp;that are causing millions of&nbsp;trees to die.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As endurance athletes, we enjoy the wonders of a beautiful planet more than most people ever can. But now, if we want those wonders to be saved, we have a need--even a responsibility--to do more to protect them than most of us have so far.&nbsp; To emphasize how embattled our&nbsp;natural world&nbsp;has become, I only have to recall several times in recent years when major running events had to be cancelled or disrupted by massive forest fires.&nbsp; The epic&nbsp;Badwater run across Death Valley had to be shut down mid-race a few years ago, and runners who'd run&nbsp;all day and all night and&nbsp;were finally nearing the finish on Mt. Whitney were stopped by forest rangers just miles from the finish,&nbsp;out of&nbsp;the race.&nbsp; Then there was the cancellation of the iconic Western States Endurance Run.&nbsp; There was a giant fire in the Angeles National Forest of Southern California, which destroyed the course on which the Mt. Disappointment 50k and 50 mile are run.&nbsp; A year later, the race's T-shirt memorialized the event.&nbsp; And now, this summer, runners in Colorado and Utah are getting hit.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The root of the challenge we face is <em>not</em> a lack of resources to protect our environment, but a lack of adequate awareness and education in our American population--a lack that&nbsp;has been exacerbated&nbsp;by a mostly gutless mainstream media.&nbsp; There's a huge--potentially tragic and catastrophic--disparity, now, between what we hear on the evening news and what the world's scientists are trying to tell us with growing urgency.&nbsp; The media, which get vast amounts of their funding from the advertising of industries that profit from the&nbsp;combustion of fossil fuels, keep our attention focused on entertainment, scandals, crime-shows, juvenile comedy,&nbsp;and other distractions.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the&nbsp;climate and environmental scientists are increasingly frantic.&nbsp; Yet,<em> the scientists are not getting through to us.</em>&nbsp; Thanks&nbsp;to pervasive anti-science campaigns, polls indicate that the percentage of Americans who don't believe in evolution,&nbsp;or who&nbsp;don't think climate change is being driven by human activity, has actually <em>increased</em> in the past twenty years.&nbsp;&nbsp;In effect, a growing part of the American population has retrogressed into pre-scientific, medieval perceptions of the world--the kinds of perceptions we associate with the Inquisition, or burning witches at the stake.&nbsp; If Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma (the one who has declared that&nbsp;global warming is a "hoax") had been born a few centuries earlier,&nbsp;he'd have been one of the Pilgrim fanatics most&nbsp;avidly&nbsp;setting the women of Salem on fire.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And now, there's a guy in North Carolina who joins Inhofe in this anti-science, anti-life crusade.&nbsp; In recent days, when a group of climate scientists and oceanographers forcasted that by 2050 the sea level along the North Carolina coast will have risen by 39 inches as a result of global warming, the state's coastal development interests attacked the scientists for saying something they feared could dstroy their businesses by leading to restrictions on coastal commerce.&nbsp; Instead of expressing concern about what was happening to the atmosphere and ocean, they went to the North Carolina&nbsp;General Assembly&nbsp;and asked that such scientific forecasts be made illegal!&nbsp;&nbsp;Several of the politicians introduced legislation that declared, in effect, that it is against the law for anyone to publicly recognize that sea-level is rising.&nbsp; It was&nbsp;like making it illegal for fire alarms to&nbsp;sound when there's a fire, or for people to call 911 when someone has a heart attack.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I've never lived in North Carolina, but I've run several races there--the N.C. Track Club Marathon in the mid-1970s, where I finished second&nbsp;to Jack Fultz, who a few weeks later won the Boston Marathon, and years later the Frostbite 50K.&nbsp; The people I met in North Carolina were friendly and gracious--the kinds of people I'd enjoy having as neighbors.&nbsp; A few years ago, my wife and I nearly decided to move to Asheville, NC (we ultimately chose Southern California for its sunnier winters).&nbsp; But for runners who live in North Carolina today, whether along the endangered coast or in the mountains (where much of the Smoky Mountain National Park is being ravaged by the aforementioned coal smoke), be aware that at least&nbsp;a few&nbsp;of your legislators must rank&nbsp;among the most ignorant humans ever to reach adulthood without being eaten by other&nbsp;animals.&nbsp; Watch out, North Carolina!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And again, what's the point for us runners (not to mention our families, neighbors, and country)?&nbsp; It's simply that we can't take our trails and wildlands for granted, ever again.&nbsp; If we and others who have an educated perspective don't take strong action to counter the anti-science and exploit-the-land forces soon, we'll <em>lose</em> those trails and wildlands.&nbsp; Economic pressures will cause the federal government to give up its public spaces--national forests, national parks, wilderness preserves--one after another, to corporate interests such as mining, timber, oil drilling, and commercial development.&nbsp; The air will get more polluted, the vistas despoiled.&nbsp; It's already happening (California is shutting down hundreds of state parks), and it's only a matter of time where the places you run may be closed.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Our society has become fragmented, and we endurance athletes happen to be among&nbsp;the constitutents best able to appreciate and defend our diminishing environment.&nbsp; We know, better than many others do, how valuable the wild world is to the long-run vitality of our species, and to the human spirit.&nbsp; Runners and environmentalists have compelling reason to work more closely together.<br /><br /><br />&nbsp;http://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/06/war-on-science-and-role-endurance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-2966992108594625149Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:52:00 +00002012-06-20T11:52:36.268-07:00Ultramarathon trainingNotes for an Aspiring Ultrarunner . . . . . . #10: Be at Home in the Wild&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A common failing of long-distance runners, especially on solo training runs, is the desire to get back home.&nbsp; You're out on a bleak winter day, and you imagine being back in your living room, snug with a big sandwich, chips, and TV.&nbsp; Do you have a fireplace?&nbsp; Even worse.&nbsp; Or, it's a hot summer day and the water in your bottle has gone tepid, and you anticipate getting back home and pouring cold juice over a tall glass of ice cubes, then exercising twenty seconds of patience to let the drink chill before beginning to sip.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; OK, the twenty seconds of patience could be a good sign--you're learning.&nbsp; But the real problem here is your subconscious default feeling about "home."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is not to suggest there's anything wrong with your desire to get back to house and hearth.&nbsp; But if that desire causes you to cut the run short, or skip it on a day when the weather looks bad, then there may be something important missing in your feel for the place where you're running.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Our species evolved in the wild, and for every century we've been civilized, there were ten centuries or more when we lived in the wild, and <em>that</em> was home--and that deeper sense of home is still in our DNA.&nbsp; One way to look at it is to consider that just as dogs are domesticated from wolves, modern humans are domesticated from nomadic hunter-gatherers.&nbsp; Give a healthy dog a chance, and it will revel in being able to go for a run in fields or woods--and&nbsp;&nbsp;significantly, it will most likely exhibit more pleasure with that outing than with any time it spends in the living room or dog house.&nbsp; A dog that is too dog-show domesticated is a sad thing.&nbsp; Ditto a&nbsp; human who can't reconnect with our primordial love of the wild--the source of all our adventure, discovery, and sustenance for hundreds of thousands of years before we had sitcoms, spectator sports, or potato chips.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The key is to see the wild not as lonely or sinister, as commonly depicted in TV shows or movies, but as a realm where you can be comfortable and self-reliant and free, and where you belong.&nbsp; Once the wild feels like home, you're home free to be an ultrarunner.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --excerpted from an Appendix to&nbsp;the forthcoming book&nbsp;<em>The Longest Race: a Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance</em>, to be published in October, copyright 2012, Ed Ayreshttp://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/06/notes-for-aspiring-ultrarunner-10-be-at.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5791431206671251947.post-5097616884465822922Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:37:00 +00002012-06-12T06:52:12.379-07:00100 provocative quotes on running and endurance in 100 days&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; For a long time, I swore I'd never do Twitter.&nbsp; Just the words "Twitter" and "tweet". . . arrghh!&nbsp; Quite aside from the fact that the whole thing sounds way too cute, you get only&nbsp;about one short sentence's worth of space.&nbsp; But I have a book coming out in October, and&nbsp;a friend whose judgment I trust told me I need to get with the 21st century and and <em>start tweeting!</em>&nbsp;&nbsp;Maybe it's a&nbsp;manifestation of what I call the "sprint culture" we live in.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here's an analogy: The&nbsp;sound-bites of politicians, policymakers, and pundits these days&nbsp;compare&nbsp;to thoughtful discussion as a 100-meter dash&nbsp;compares to an ultramarathon.&nbsp; Our evolution as intelligent bipeds prepared us for the ultra, but not so much for the sprint.&nbsp; Ask any lion.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What I came up with is&nbsp;to&nbsp;collect&nbsp;comments from&nbsp;people like Mark Twain,&nbsp;Clarence DeMar, and the Buddah, that are not&nbsp;too cute or inane&nbsp;and will actually&nbsp;fit in the Twitter box.&nbsp;&nbsp;At the beginning of June, I launched a program to tweet 100&nbsp;bodacious quotes&nbsp;over 100 days,&nbsp; And then, for the convenience of people&nbsp;can't actually wait by&nbsp;their Twitter&nbsp;box all day to see&nbsp;what&nbsp;Thoreau thought about marathons, I decided that every 10 days I'll publish the&nbsp;latest 10 quotes here.&nbsp; So, here are the first 10:<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes." --Buddah<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "Men ran after and ate horses for four hundred thousand years.&nbsp; The outcome is more than a love of meat; it is a runner's body."&nbsp; --Anthropologist Paul Shepard<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "There are as many reasons for running as there are days in a year...But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child."&nbsp; --Dr. George Sheehan<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "Every man dies, but not every man really lives."&nbsp; --William Wallace, as played by Mel Gibson in 'Braveheart', cited in run100s.com.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "If you can fill the unforgiving minute / with sixty seconds worth of distance run / Yours is the Earth."&nbsp; --Rudyard Kipling, in<em> If</em><br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "I got plenty of cautions that one or two marathons was all a man should do in a lifetime." --Clarence DeMar in 1911, before the first of his 7 Boston Marathon wins and 65 marathons in all.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "Running has substantially shaped human evolution. Running made us human." --Evolutionary biologist Dennis Bramble<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "What's true for us as individual humans is true for the civilization we create: a sprint culture, seeking ever greater speed in all things, cannot endure."&nbsp; --my forthcoming book, <em>The Longest Race</em><br /><br /><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #9</em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "I'm 84 years old.&nbsp; Don't let the altar-boy face fool you."&nbsp; --Johnny Kelly, after the finish of his 61st Boston Marathon<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "There are clubs you can't belong to, neighborhoods you can't live in, schools you can't get into, but the roads are always open."&nbsp; --Nikehttp://enduranceandsustainability.blogspot.com/2012/06/100-provocative-quotes-on-running-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ed Ayres)0